The enduring enigma that is Ben Stokes

Ben Stokes (Source: AP Newsroom)

The only thing that Ben Stokes cannot do on a cricket pitch is to raise the finger instantly after creaming an over pitched one through to the cover boundary for a glorious shot. 

That’s after having steamed in post a ten step run up from over the wicket. 

As for the rest; the New Zealand-born English lad can pretty much do everything expected from a cricketing ace. 

And he’s an ace, well and truly speaking. 

Of that there’s little doubt akin to there being none in the case of a dismissal lwhen a perfect outswinger breaches past the defence of a right-hander and clips the top of off. 

Remorse inevitably falls. 

To a team that comprises the tenacity of Jimmy Anderson, the passion of Sam Curran, the class of Joe Root, the charisma of Moeen Ali and the flair of Liam Livingstone, Ben Stokes represents might. 

And lest it is forgotten, the ability to keep up the fight when the chips are down. 

He demonstrated ample evidence of that several summers ago in South Africa as he notched up a cracker of a double century that came at well over run-a-ball. 

Big Morne Morkel seemed tired. Chris Morris was clueless. The mighty Kagiso Rabada seemed to have no answers in front of a batting display that, truth be told, was carnage. 

Nothing else. 

The whirlwind 258-off-198 deliveries was a stunner akin to Mbappe’s golden boot performance that very nearly dislodged Argentina at Qatar. In the end, it took AB de Villiers to run out Stokes who’d hit 11 sixes in that Test knock. 

Heck, that wasn’t even peak Ben Stokes. 

A couple of years ago as the West Indies visited England and thus brought Cricket back from the dead during the Covid pandemic nightmare, Ben Stokes was at it again showing inexhaustible grit at the Manchester Test. 

On this particular occasion, it was the second innings of the visitors batting. As Windies’ vice-captain Jermaine Blackwood timed a slightly over pitched one by the right arm medium pacer, Stokes came into the act instead of being an onlooker as the red ball blazed straight down the ground making its way toward the fence.

When he could have simply waited for those stationed in the outfield to cut it off and send it to the non-striker’s end, Ben Stokes hurried down the ground himself to pull back the red cherry inches from the ropes. 

There are many who live for shenanigans in the game and fancy playing the mind games. 

And then there are Ben Stokes and his kinds, and there aren’t many, who epitomise true grit and a sense of tirelessness that lifts the bar of contest. 

Ben Stokes (Source: AP Newsroom)

They make Cricket, at the back of unbridled optimism and unyielding enthusiasm, a turf war where one doesn’t wield temperamental machine guns but that US Navy Seal-like bravado. 

England’s tough cookie did just that three unforgettable years ago and perhaps facing the most vulnerable position that one could’ve been in. 

As he compiled the useful albeit nervous runs in that exemplary super over saga against Kane Williamson’s-men, the 2019 ODI World Cup final truly came alive. 

Stokes with a master stroke is how one would remember the way in which Jimmy Neesham was picked apart for aplenty. 

Yet, in doing all of that, akin to a perfect fable that has its twists and turns Stokes has never had it any easy. 

Hardwired with a never say die Kevin Pietersen-like persona, the all round star has had to work very hard to blend in. 

But today he’s an integral part of a line up that would’ve seemed incomplete and perhaps bereft of its match winning aura had Ben Stokes not given it his everything. 

He’s been part of altercations that wouldn’t have looked good on a Root for instance.  

And yet, Stokes didn’t do the dirty even when Marlon Samuels, one of Cricket’s unique characters, succeeded in getting under the English cricketer’s skin in the Caribbean, which was about half a decade ago.  

Surely, sarcasm and spasm both thrive on the cricket field affecting the mind and the body, respectively. 

But when an opponent offers you a salute when you’ve just gotten out just what is one to do? 

How does one not resort to colorful verbiage that one would otherwise never let a kid listen to? 

Yet, Stokes only showed a sullen face and walked out unhappily; he didn’t recede to Samuels’s level while the Jamaican didn’t seem to budge. 

Ben Stokes (Source: AP Newsroom)

Not that that was the only particular occasion where he felt heartaches against the West Indies.  

When Carlos Brathwaite lifted England’s promising all round star to four back-to-back sixes and transformed Eden Gardens to a party bay, the Barbadian also brought tears to Stokes’ eyes besides bringing the all rounder to his knees. 

England has been hammered a little over half a decade back in an exhibition of batting butchery and Stokes, the man with that forgettable spell was simply inconsolable. 

But that was then. 

A few weeks ago, as Ben Stokes masterminded a successful run chase for England against one of cricket’s bedazzling enigmas Pakistan, it just seemed that Cricket served a neutraliser. 

In the finals of the T20 World Cup (2022), i.e., the very elite stage of the short format where six years ago he had shredded to pieces, all of a sudden it seemed that Ben Stokes became a barbed wire. 

One that no cannon could touch, let alone breach. 

Cricket has a great way of giving back. When Sachin Tendulkar departed after his final international inning at the Wankhede, the world felt despair and gave a fitting send off. 

And not too long ago, when Ben Stokes ensured that Pakistan departed from Australia as the vanquished, the cricketing world accepted the England player as one of its own. 

It seemed that something that had gone awry many summers ago in India had been repaired Down Under and with much pride and gusto. 

Not that the Ben Stokes story ended there in 2022 with his match winning knock of 52 runs. A few hours ago, he was on the pitch batting as his England swept aside Pakistan in Pakistan in completing a memorable whitewash. 

Ben Stokes was undefeated back then donning the blooming English colours in the T20 Mecca called Melbourne. 

And captain Ben had stoked England’s fire miles away sporting the serene whites in Pakistan even though his was a contribution of 35 unbeaten runs. 

The journeyman isn’t done yet; for it seems he’s only just begun.

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