Stokes rides to rescue
England in semis as brilliant Big Ben delivers the goods
BEN STOKES stood firm yesterday just as all around him were losing their nerve and England were flirting with Twenty20 World Cup disaster.
England’s must-win final group game against Sri Lanka here had been looking like a stroll at the SCG when they reached 75 without loss in reply to Sri Lanka’s 141 for eight.
Yet they threatened to pull off one of the great English cricketing cock-ups while handing Australia, of all teams, an unlikely reprieve when they crashed to 111 for five against their traditional weakness of spin. But cometh the hour cometh
Stokes. All through this tournament the Test captain and talisman has struggled to assert himself with the bat in the format where his record is not nearly as good as his swashbuckling all-round reputation would suggest.
But here he provided the calmest of heads even when Sam Curran became the sixth man to fall, with 13 needed, nerves jangling and with Dawid Malan in the dressing room nursing a damaged groin.
Thank heavens then for Stokes, who was the only England batter to play sensibly, showing some of the cricketing intelligence he displayed when winning the 50-over World Cup for England by finishing unbeaten on 42 off 36 balls.
Even then it went down to the last over before Chris Woakes, another wise old head, hit the winning runs with just two balls left, England progressing on net run-rate and holders Australia, gloriously, knocked out of their own tournament without even reaching the business stage.
England managed to get over the finishing line against the logic of this event because the statistics suggested this was a very significant toss to lose.
All five previous games played here in this tournament had been won by the team batting first as had 12 of the last 15 men’s Twenty20 games at the SCG.
Add the fact England have had a miserable year chasing, their great strength under Eoin Morgan, and had only won three of their 12 T20 games batting second in 2022 and it was clear Sri Lanka had been handed a significant advantage.
When Sri Lanka got off to a fantastic start in front of a large army of their fans it began to look as if England might flunk their lines and go out of this first white-ball tournament under Jos Buttler.
Pathum Nissanka was quite brilliant in smashing 67 off 45 balls with five sixes, belying Sri Lanka’s reputation for poor batting in this tournament and putting England to the sword.
The departure of Nissanka seemed to take the wind out of Sri Lanka’s sails and England were much better in the second half of their innings.
Sri Lanka could manage just 25 runs in their last five overs, with 14 dot balls, while losing five wickets.
Mark Wood took two of them and effecting a run-out in the last over to finish with three for 26, having gone for 17 in his first over.
When England raced to 70 without
loss in the power-play, intelligently targeting Sri Lanka’s quicker bowlers, a comprehensive and nerveless victory looked inevitable.
But it is never quite as straightforward as that and Sri Lanka’s best player, Wanindu
Hasaranga, claimed the wickets of both openers in Jos Buttler and Alex Hales.
When Dhananjaya de Silva added a low return catch to send back Harry Brook, and with Dawid Malan clearly only going to bat in an emergency, England started to get twitchy at 93 for three at the end of the 11th over.
When both Liam Livingstone and Moeen Ali followed, England were giving Australia more than a glimmer of hope that they would somehow go through to the last four instead.
Perhaps they were just teasing them. Either way it was sweet for England when that man Stokes guided them home and Australia were left ruing a lesser net run-rate made worse than England’s by the likes of Ireland’s Lorcan Tucker and Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan.
Now it is England who will now go to Adelaide as group runners-up where they will probably face India in the second semi-final on Thursday. And Australia who are left licking their wounds and heading for their own homes.