Ben Stokes insisted he was “not too fussed” about chasing individual records after he rocketed to the top of England’s all-time one-day international charts with an innings of 182 as England thrashed New Zealand by 181 runs.
Stokes’s total beat the previous record, set by Jason Roy in 2018, by two runs but he said that not only was he not aiming for that mark, he had no idea what it was.
“I just apologised to Jase upstairs,” Stokes said. “He said ‘well done’ and I said ‘sorry’. I don’t think there was too much to it. He’ll be pretty happy he’s seen one of his teammates, who he’s played a lot of cricket with, take that off him.
“But individual stuff like that I’m not too fussed about. I didn’t really know I’d done it until the bloke on the Tannoy started announcing it and then I got out next ball. It was his fault!”
Just weeks after he made public his decision to return to the format after a short-lived retirement, Stokes said the main benefit of his innings had been to refamiliarise himself with its particular rhythms.
“It was good for me personally just to get familiarity again with how 50-over cricket goes,” he said. “There were a couple of times I had to check myself, because I looked up and there were still 23, 24 overs left. Sometimes you have to drag yourself back I guess, you have way more time than you think.”
Stokes said that the decision to return to the team as a specialist batter, rather than as an all-rounder, has helped his focus. “I think this is the first time I’ve been clear in my mind that that’s the one thing I can focus on. Over the last 18 months, every day has been: ‘Will I bowl, will I not bowl?’ Just having that clarity in my head contributes.”
The game was the latest in a run of lopsided contests against New Zealand, across both 20- and 50‑over formats, in recent weeks with England 4-3 up overall and with a 2-1 lead going into the final match of the ODI series on Friday. “All seven games have been a bit like that, one-sided either way,” said Gary Stead, the Black Caps head coach. “It’d be nice to actually have a close one so we can see both teams under pressure a wee bit. I think England are a quality side, we all know that. We also feel we can beat them on our day as well. We need to play better than we did [here] to beat them, though.”
