Ben Stokes has given up warm-up cricket, pared back his training and, in response to a chronic left-knee problem that might have prompted a break earlier in his career, the all-rounder has cut his bowling to moments of absolute necessity.
This is not to say that Stokes has stopped putting in. Far from it. The point here is that the less the England captain pays heed to maintaining output, somehow the more this team takes on some of the less quantifiable aspects of his cricket: the aura, the game-breaking interventions and that unrelenting drive.
