Ben Stokes has been a magnificent player for England, and leaves a legacy of individual brilliance and inspirational leadership. However you want to judge him, whether it is the quality of his bowling, his batting and his fielding, his sometimes heroic determination, or the character that makes him uniquely able to connect with teammates and with the public, he is among the very best.
The way he became such an important figure in English cricket, and the fact that he is a seam‑bowling all-rounder, means he will always be compared with Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff, but unlike them he excelled also at captaincy. He is a man of great empathy, which makes him unusually good with young players, at making them feel comfortable in an environment that can be difficult to enter.
