He swept Nathan Smith for six on an acid-trip of an afternoon, his last on the field as a Test cricketer. He nearly shredded Will O’Rourke’s fingers with a straight drive and swung his way to 30 as an agent of chaos. But was it ever going to last much longer?
In his finest moments, Ben Stokes would grind before the burst, scoring two off his first 66 balls at Headingley in 2019 before tub-thumping to an unbeaten 135. Holding on for a half-century in the World Cup final that same summer before a last, desperate release of power, 34 coming off his next 17 balls at Lord’s. He could make batting look harder than anything else and then, only then, would he play the shot of a lifetime.
