As I look back over a summer when Ben Stokes has inspired an extraordinary turnaround of England’s fortunes in Test cricket, I keep returning to a more distant memory. It was 2013, and Stokes and I were in Australia, his first England Lions tour as a player and my first as batting coach. He was sent home after coming back very late one evening or, more accurately, early one morning.
David Parsons, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s performance director, and the first-team coach, Andy Flower, happened to be over at the time and sat in on the disciplinary meeting. The feeling in the meeting was that Stokes did not seem to show any contrition at all and when it ended and he got up to leave, Flower – who had stayed quiet up to this point – said to him: “You really don’t want to play for England, do you?” Before he slipped out the door, Stokes replied: “Just watch me, pal.”
