Ben Stokes determined to seize Ashes lifeline after earlier errors
by Andy Bull
Cricket news, scores and fixtures | Sport | The GuardianToday,
The England all-rounder, sent home in disgrace from a Lions tour to Australia six months ago, is out to make amends
"It has been," Ben Stokes says, "a pretty productive couple of weeks." He reels off his achievements. At the end of August he played what was perhaps the best all-round game of his life, when he made 133 runs and took five wickets for Durham against Yorkshire at Scarborough. He got back into the England team, scored a crucial 25 off 29 balls in their win over Australia in Cardiff, and followed that with his first international five-for at Southampton. Then he was back with his county in time to help them win the Championship at Nottingham.
Oh yes. And he got called up to England's Ashes squad. Stokes actually forgot that one. It has all happened in such a rush, and, he says, his selection hasn't sunk in yet. "I'm pretty happy with it," he says. Which, it turns out, is a lie. He is absolutely delighted by it. "It was such a surprise. When I got the call I was speechless, I just didn't know what to say. Now I just can't wait to be in the changing room for the first Test this winter so I can take in the atmosphere."
Six months ago Stokes was in Australia playing for the England Lions. He was sent home because he went out drinking one time too many. It was not the first time he had been in trouble. Before Christmas he was arrested on a night out after he got into a kerfuffle with a policeman. He is a young man, still only 22, but, as he admits, he was beginning to "get in the bad books" of the England management. They were keen on him, having given him his debut back in 2011 when he had only just turned 20. But they were beginning to have doubts about his attitude.
Steve Harmison, Stokes's sometime team-mate, has pointed out that the really impressive thing about his season has been the way he has responded to the punishment. This season he has taken 42 wickets at 26 runs each in the Championship, and, despite "not being at my best with the bat", scored 615 runs at 28, with a century and three fifties. Harmison points out that Matt Coles, the young fast bowler who was sent back from Australia along with Stokes, he has had a hard time of it since: he played seven games for Kent, taking 13 wickets at 42, and then went out on loan to Hampshire. The contrast is stark.
"Some things were said that really hit home," Stokes recalls. "After the incident, I just really wanted to prove how much I wanted to play for England, show everyone that I wanted it enough to do everything that was being asked of me, on and off the pitch."
Stokes's father, Ged, was a professional rugby league player and coach. I wonder whether he had a word with his boy. "He didn't need to. Obviously he's my parent, so however old I am he always has his penny's worth. But I think he realised I needed to do this for myself, rather than leave it to someone else to push me. It was a choice I made. I wanted to be the one to make these changes and prove them wrong."
So Stokes got his head down, started to be "more professional". He did, in short, exactly what England asked of him. Which is how he will carry on. He'd love the opportunity to play at No6, but right now he says he'll be happy to adapt to whatever job they want to give him. In the ODI series against Australia he was batting at No8 and bowling first change, "a different role from the one I am used to". Stokes still thinks of himself as a better batsman than a bowler. "I'm still learning a lot about bowling, but I have really come on in the last two years because of the responsibility that I have been given at Durham. I used to be guilty of trying to get a wicket every ball, but I've learned the game is not that easy. That's come with experience."
Stokes has had more of that in his young life than you might think. He made his Durham debut when he was just 17, has spent a lot of time living on his own, and has seen a lot of the world too. His father moved the family to England from New Zealand so he could coach at Workington when Ben was 12. "I'm pretty sure I stamped my feet and said: 'No I don't want to go.'" They ended up in Cockermouth. A lot of Ben's best friends still live there. He says he thinks of England as his "adopted country", though he has been here a decade now, and his northern accent is unmistakable. His brother, who is back in New Zealand, can't make it out. "I don't speak much to him much just because he can't understand me. We keep that to texts and emails and stuff, because it is just pointless me and him trying to talk."
Stokes will see all his old family and friends from New Zealand this winter. Happily for them, when it comes to cricket England and New Zealand have one thing in common. They don't mind who he is playing for, just so long as he beats the Aussies.
The Ashes
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Ashes 2013-14
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Andy Bull
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