On the eve of a new series, and four years after he carved his name into Ashes folklore with a heroic, unbeaten, match-winning innings of 135 at Headingley, Ben Stokes encouraged his team to grasp the opportunity that this historic rivalry offers more than any other: for players to become legends.
“We all know if you do well in the Ashes you’re going to be spoken about for many a year,” he said. “When the Ashes comes around it’s the big one in the calendar. So any individual who finds themselves either having a great series or a great individual performance, that will never be forgotten.”
There have been many Ashes when it has been hard to find anything on which both teams agree but as they prepared for action to start at Edgbaston on Friday there was one thing both captains insisted was true: that their side is capable of beating any other.
“If we play to the capabilities we know we’re capable of then I know we are able to beat any team,” said Stokes. “I know that’s a big statement in itself, but I think what we’ve done over the last year, we’re able to say that.”
Meanwhile Pat Cummins, his Australian counterpart, said that having won the World Test Championship final last week this was “a moment in time where you look back and say that our best is as good as anyone else’s in the world”.
Though Ashes series are rarely underhyped, the success both teams have enjoyed since Australia’s 4-0 win in 2021-22 cast English Test cricket into crisis makes this the most anticipated encounter in recent memory. “There’s been so much talk about it in the last 18 months,” Cummins said. “We’re pumped that it’s here. This one in particular seems like it’s just got a little bit more on it, the whole cricketing world stops for a month to put their attention on this series. We’re lucky we’re in the middle of it.”
This series has been certainly the focus of England’s attention for some time. “Today has been the most relaxed the group has felt, because we start tomorrow,” Stokes said. “Every day that we edge closer to the start of the series we’ve been wishing it starts tomorrow and now that day is finally here. It’s been a long time coming.”
One of the greatest achievements of Stokes and the England coach, Brendon McCullum, has been to remove the fear of failure. “We want to leave here 1-0 up,” Stokes said on Thursday, “but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t.” So there is no ambition to inflict on their opponents the kind of humbling that they themselves endured on their last visit to Australia? “All I want is for the team to go out there and keep pushing the boundaries of what we’ve achieved so far,” Stokes said. “As long as we can stay true to that then I will be a happy and proud captain, regardless of the result at the end of the series.”
Stokes described his decision to call Moeen Ali out of retirement after Jack Leach’s lumbar fracture as “a stomach and heart feeling, rather than my brain” – but it is the feeling in his knee that has been the key topic of discussion.
For the third consecutive day he bowled in training at close to full pace, and emerged from the experience feeling sprightly enough to leave the ground in search of further exertions, with a golf bag on his shoulder. “The last three days have been really good for my confidence,” Stokes said. “I’ve bowled every day and been able to run in with more intensity day by day, so I have got myself in a good position to be able to bowl.”
In recent years Stokes’s fitness has often prevented him reaching the level he so memorably showed at Headingley in 2019, but he feels he might be ready to reach those heights again. “Obviously every time I am on the field that is what I want to do, but my body was stopping me from doing that,” he said. “What I have done is put myself in a place where I feel much more capable of being able to do that. I’m not going to speak too soon – who knows where I could be in two weeks’ time? – but hopefully I don’t have to worry about that.”
