Ben Stokes has lost a sense of who he is – in his shell with the bat, barely bowling, and dropping catches
England are not yet out of the World Test Championship final, but their pulse-rate is disturbingly low because Ben Stokes, at the heart of their side, has seldom seemed so vulnerable.
As Joe Root has run out of runs, England need a senior batsman to stand up in the third Test, and it is not too late yet, but England have not posted 200 since their first innings of this series. To set India a target that causes them anxiety in Ahmedabad, England need their vice-captain and resident miracle-worker to rise again.
Since taking down India’s third-choice left-arm spinner in Chennai, by running down the track against Nadeem Shahbaz, Stokes has seemed to doubt himself. The state of his knees cannot give him confidence – 15 overs so far this series – and he is not going to be able to bowl much more in this match either, because his left foot has to land in a crater bigger than anything made by the spacecraft that landed on Mars. England’s selection of three pace bowlers might have worked on a firm pitch, but not where the creases have already turned to dust and hampered all of them: a feature unworthy of the magnificent new stadium.
Stokes in the course of this series has been converting from an all-rounder, with the licence to bat as he likes, into a specialist batsman who has to bat as the team needs. A different game altogether. England demand responsibility from their number five. Andrew Flintoff and Sir Ian Botham could throw the bat at number six.
A sweep against Axar Patel, a lofted straight-drive against Ravichandran Ashwin, then Stokes was gone again for the fourth anonymous contribution in a row: 7, 18, 8 and 6. The unsettling point for England supporters is not that he has failed since his rollicking 82 against Shahbaz, but the shackles Stokes has imposed on himself. His latest 39 runs have taken 121 balls. The man born in New Zealand, who has played the greatest innings for England has, against India’s spinners, started to play French cricket.
Patel pinned Stokes on the crease – as so many of the England batsmen were – and prospects for Stokes’s second innings are not bright the way he is going. Ashwin dismisses Stokes once per Test on average: 10 times so far, and this is their 11th Test as adversaries.
Back at the drawing-board Stokes might decide to bat with softer hands in Tests in India, and play back further in his crease to work the ball wristily into leg-side gaps, and thereby rotate the strike. Facing whole overs at a time from Ashwin and Patel on pitches designed for them does not increase a batsman’s life expectancy.
But Stokes never worried about working Nathan Lyon into gaps at Headingley in 2019: he either drove Australia’s offspinner straight into the stands or reverse-swept him into the Western Terrace. And if he does run down the pitch in his second innings, preferably to Patel not Ashwin, Stokes does not have to go through with a shot. Graham Thorpe, England’s batting coach, can tell any left-hander how to come down the pitch then kick the ball away, the bowler’s length having been disrupted.
In their second innings, England’s other batsmen are going to need more footwork, instead of being trapped on the crease by the ball skidding on. Zak Crawley was wonderful so far as he went, using his reach to cover drive, but it was still not enough to give England the start they have wanted this winter and have never had apart from when Rory Burns and Dom Sibley added 63 in the first Test at Chennai: this was the platform for Root’s double-century and Stokes’s 82 that took down Shahbaz.
It was also out of Stokes’s normal character to floor the chance offered him at second slip. The third umpire Shamsuddin was far too quick in his judgement – he should have called for at least one other angle – but the ball did appear to touch the grass even if Stokes had some fingers of his right hand underneath it.
To put saliva on the ball soon afterwards suggested again that Stokes was not quite with it. No duplicity intended at all, as he did it under the umpire’s nose, but still. Stokes sets himself the highest standards and he did not reach them on day one, and if he does not in England’s second innings, the chance of that WTC final has finally gone.
