Ben Hits the Right Notes in Tirring Comeback

It seems a distant, rather impertinent and actually faintly absurd memory now, but there have been times when, even though the experience of team-mates, opponents and coaches and the evidence of our own eyes insisted, overwhelmingly, that it just could not happen to him, some harboured genuine fears that Ben Stokes might somehow fail to live up to his galactic potential.

This week at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, however, the Durham all-rounder could not have chosen a more appropriate venue in which to deliver as close to the perfect 50-over game as makes no difference, as he produced a man-of-the-match display to help win England’s final ODI against India, and place the IPL franchise owners on red alert to break the bank to land him.

Ten months ago, primed and ready to deliver England the World T20 trophy on this same ground by restricting West Indies to fewer than 18 runs in the final over, Stokes watched in ever-increasing bewilderment as Carlos Brathwaite hit his first four balls for six.

Stokes afterwards admitted that in the moment he watched the fourth soar over the rope then sank to his knees in despair, he felt a sense of “complete devastation ” – and that “the whole world” had come down on him. For a while, as Stokes recalled: “I didn’t want to get back up.”

But, in the aftermath of the worst moment of his career, Stokes also came up with something else that, at the time, sounded little more than conforming to the script, but which, listened to again now, carries a far greater resonance.

“This... will be a little bit of motivation,” he explained, “to make sure this does not ever happen again. So train ten minutes longer every now and again to get better.”

Those who watch Stokes closely as he goes about his preparation will vouch for the fact that, since that dark day, he has been as good as his word.