Ben Foakes praised Ben Stokes for taking the pressure off during their astute partnership of 173 during the second day of the second Test against South Africa, and for giving him permission to be dull. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Stokes told him as they faced down the steaming Anrich Nortje.
Both Bens carved brilliant hundreds with extra meaning as they took England from an uneasy position against South Africa to a dominant one. Stokes’s 103 was his first as Test captain and on the very day his documentary Phoenix from the Ashes was released. Foakes’s unbeaten 113 was his first Test hundred at home.
