By Laraib Naqvi
England team’s flourishing form and Ben Stokes’ brilliance looks something out of a movie. White-washing Pakistan at home soil which no captain had ever accomplished before was so swiftly done by Ben Stokes.
A white wash and that too with 5.50 run rate per over throughout is just mind boggling from the majestic England’s side. Nobody could have seen this coming from his captaincy after the disappointing 4-0 loss in Ashes in the summer which launched Stokes’ captaincy career – but now he’s sitting at the top of England’s scientist-captains, with the great Mike Brearly. No one in their sane mind could have predicted this triumph.
Let’s go back a little in time to the year 2000 when Nasser Hussain was seen sitting in the dressing room with his head buried in his hands as if his world had crumbled before him. Instead, it was the sweet disbelief in what he achieved there in that moment. He had won England a test series in Pakistan after 40 years. From the bleak 1990s to that majestic away win, that moment has been stored and saved forever in the eyes of not just England but cricket fans all over the world. Now 22 years later Ben Stokes is living the same glory – or as some might argue, even better.
“There’s a maverick in it and a genius in a lot of it. The skipper never lets the game drift. He’s always pulling a string somewhere and the guys follow him. He’s just got an insatiable appetite to keep moving the game forward. It’s the man’s management, it’s the consistency of message, it’s the pure passion and drive that he’s got to make a significant difference in Test cricket, and English cricket.” said Brendon Mccullum, the English coach who has matched finely with the captain Ben Stokes.
England’s fast and furious batting has been the highlight of Stokes’ captaincy. Their game is mind baffling, striking the opposition to 506 for 4 in a single day. A stereotype about England is that their approach is hitting back to the opposition in the fourth innings but their tour to Pakistan in which first two tests were won effortlessly despite batting first, shatters that stereotype and brings out the tactical and mysterious game plan of Stokes into the eyes of the world.
Even when their strategy hasn’t gone according to plan – for instance Stuart Board slipping a world record 35 runs per over while bowling to Jasprit Bumrah last summer – nothing has taken a toll on Stokes’ focus and confidence in his team. He bounced back every time after such hefty overs, taking ten wickets in every innings. An accomplishment England has achieved in each of their 19 fielding sessions.
The standard of leadership that Stokes has set can not be matched by a normal person in a very long time. We can only gasp in shock at his triumphs and skills but even the people who work with him and experience his skillset have been blown away by his intelligence. Mark Wood, his teammate since school days, said, “He’s always had a fantastic cricket brain but he’s just so much more rounded than when we were growing up. He was this alpha guy who would whack it, but he’s got other sides to him now. He’ll put an arm round people, express what he means really articulately. I didn’t think he had some of the words in his locker. But he’s been world-class.”
A guy whose own personal portfolio is filled with feats of single-handed match-winning moments is now responsible for making his team stride high in the direction of greatness. Even while being the total alpha at the Pakistan tour, he himself goes home with just the highest score of 41 in all six innings and one wicket only. But he could not be more fulfilled and happy with his team.
“He’s got the benefit of a long and distinguished career behind him, and he’s in that stage of his life where he wants to do something significant and make a real impact. Not just on the game but on other people’s careers. He’s identified that taking away that pressure and that fear of failure allows the talent and the skill to come out”, coach McCullum said about Stokes.
Stokes aims for the aggressive attacking approach more than any other opponent but when the moment requires, he easily backs off, knows to let the situation breathe and gives the game in the hands of his teammates. The psychology behind his skills is so puzzling that it’s hard to make any speculations.
Maybe it all traces back to Bristol, when he was arrested in a nightclub and his future with England Cricket seemed uncertain. Maybe that incident created a hunger and drive in him to be this version of himself, to give whatever it is to represent his country at the highest level. Before his fate was sealed at Bristol Crown Court in August 2018, he bowled England to victory in the first test against India at Edgbaston. After his dazzling spell of three wickets in the final session, he spoke to Sky Sports and said, “I don’t know what to be feeling right now, playing for England means so much.” He looked devastated even in that winning moment as he wasn’t sure whether he’ll ever experience playing for his country again.
Ten days after his vindication, Stokes was so committed to erasing his guilt that he had to be stopped and taken away by Trevor Bayliss from his practice during devastating humid conditions on a tour to Sri Lanka and was told to take it easy before it broke him. His guilt made him dig deeper than any other player could possibly think of, and find skillset and greatness in himself to create history.
Ben Stokes’ approach seems like a surviving mechanism not just for himself but for Test cricket collectively. If a player as talented and versatile as Will Smeed can turn away from Test at the age of just 21, then it is alarming for the future of red-ball cricket. In the age where entertainment of T20 games is impossible to ignore and surpass, Stokes and his team’s way of packaging and presenting Test cricket to the world is perfect to preserve and gain Test cricket the attention it deserves.
On the flipside of Stokes’ experiences, his failures such as a very close loss at the T20 World Cup final in Kolkata gives the players looking up to him a lesson that it doesn’t matter if you blow up your chance to win, you’re most likely not going to fail quite as spectacularly as four final-losing sixes in a row.
And even if you do, as Stokes himself told Jofra Archer before the 2019 World Cup final Super Over, he himself is living proof that the sun will still rise the following day, and that when all the fuss has blown over, it’s still only a game at the end of it all. (Edited by Khadijah Kamili)
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