Rescuer of a fading cause, staggering around on creaking joints as aching limbs launch ball after ball beyond the boundary; a team on the brink of collapse dragged towards salvation and victory by one man’s stubborn streak.
This was exactly the kind of innings England fans had in mind when Ben Stokes announced his decision to un-retire ahead of this World Cup. Unfortunately, it was being played by Glenn Maxwell.
Less than 24 hours on from Maxwell’s magnum opus, the Australian’s double-hundred against Afghanistan on Tuesday to take his country into the semi-finals constituting probably the greatest ODI knock of all time, Stokes was indeed playing his own defiant hand.
A century from England’s talisman in Pune steered the defenceless champions from the precipice of another premature skittling to a total too tall for the Dutch and, in the process, kept their quaint push for Champions Trophy qualification alive.
What was this, really? On one hand, the selfless act of a man duty-bound to the last, fronting up in aid of a collective suspected of being without strong leadership; on the other, an ill-advised pursuit when, as Test captain and, at present, only half an all-rounder, there is a surgeon’s knife waiting and a five-match tour to India on the horizon.
Last week, after months of innuendo and confessed efforts to lead observers up the odd garden path, Stokes confirmed he will have his troublesome knee operated on the minute this tournament is over, which, for England in their primary purpose, it has been for several weeks.
Had Stokes flown home after the defeat by India that effectively confirmed England’s elimination last month, he might already have been a fortnight into his recovery by the time his team-mates take their leave following Saturday’s final group game against Pakistan.
The 32-year-old has set a timeline for post-op rehab at between five and seven weeks, though finding peak match form and fitness will surely take longer; England fly to the UAE for a training camp in little more than two months, then on to Hyderabad for the First Test from January 25.
Time, clearly, is tight, and if the Test side start the format’s most daunting assignment with their inspirational leader undercooked, or God forbid, absent entirely, few will console themselves with recall of the day the Dutch were belted all over Maharashtra.
Quite simply, though, bailing is not Stokes’s style. “I understand it from a down-the-line point of view,” he said on Wednesday night. “But never leave early, never take the easy way out. I’d never leave my team-mates hanging like that.”
Never leave early, never take the easy way out. I’d never leave my team-mates hanging like that
“I don’t see Stokes as someone who leaves a sinking ship,” Nasser Hussain agreed.
That another former England captain, Eoin Morgan, had accused the team’s formal leadership of doing exactly that in putting up fielding coach Carl Hopkinson for pre-match media duties was surely no coincidence.
Beyond visions of the ultimate team man, there is perhaps still something personal in it for Stokes, too.
That this was his first World Cup hundred was a reminder of how relatively little World Cup cricket one of the modern greats has played, and in turn offered a hint at how omission in 2015 might have played a part in making a 2023 recall impossible to ignore, even with the solace of having defined England’s triumph in between. He was not to know it would end like this.
It remains hard, then, to begrudge Stokes his return, and at the same time easy to question what on earth he is doing still on the subcontinent now. Whether sticking around has been worth it will only become clear in time.
