2. Test:v Australia, Perth, 2013
18 and 120, 1-63 &2-82 (Australia won by 150 runs)
You don’t always have to win to show that you’ve won. There was a positive side to England’s devastating 5-0 defeat, which shattered one of the greatest teams in Australia: it was Ben Stokes’ debut. While the spirits of many of his greats were crushed, Stokes, flame-haired and feisty to the point of cliché, walked into Test cricket’s hottest kitchen and immediately fired up a few more stoves. At first Australia mocked him, assuming the massacre was just another Pom. Stokes talked the talk, mostly with asterisks, and walked off with a classically magnificent fourth-innings hundred at Waca. Stokes bowled textbook straight innings, hauled in bogey Mitchell Johnson with cool authority and briefly gave England hope they could chase down a target of 504. They failed to do so, but Stokes earned something rarer than an England Ashes win: the lasting respect of everyone. The only person wearing Baggy Green.
10th Test: against New Zealand at Lord’s 2015
92 and 101, 0-105 and 3-38 (England won by 124 runs)
The Trial of the Gods for the Gods was the first appearance of match-winning Stokes as England overcame a huge deficit to beat a New Zealand team that had been playing Bazball years before it was said. A stunning score of 92 on the first day helped England improve from 30 to 389 for four. They were still 134 out in the first innings but Stokes’ thrilling 85-ball century – the fastest at Lord’s and the first of countless JFK moments during the Test. Career – changed the tone of the game and the national attitude towards a team that had spent much of the previous two years in the doghouse. On the feel-good final day, Stokes dismissed Kane Williamson, who was most likely to save the game, and Brendon McCullum, who was most likely to win, with back-to-back shots. It wouldn’t be the last time he captured both the moment and the match.
55th Test: against Australia at Headingley, 2019
8 and 135*, 1-45 and 3-56 (England won by one wicket)
Nietzsche loved Ben Stokes. He consistently found both strength and growth in challenges. The Bristol court case made him a wiser, slightly more jaded man; The death of his father, Ged, gave Stokes a perspective and professional mindset that would make him a gazillionaire if he could bottle it. And Carlos Brathwaite’s four sixes to win the 2016 World T20 final shaped rather than defined Stokes. Not with the ball – he has hardly bowled to the death since – but as a batsman. This experience taught Stokes that if you drill the game deep enough, unthinkable things can happen. He soon realized that the nerve-shattering endings stirred something in him; a mastery that challenges his fellow immortals, let alone ordinary mortals. Six weeks after a once-in-a-lifetime miracle in the 2019 World Cup final, Stokes pulled off another miracle to keep the Ashes alive at Headingley. No pitching has increased like this in testing history. Stokes scored three from his first 73 balls, 58 from his next 104 and 74 from his last 42 (including seven lusty but clear-headed sixes) in a sparking partnership of 76 with Jack Leach. Stokes carried it in a spell of 24.2 overs before treading water, which was only broken by Jofra Archer’s four overs. Stokes’ marathon was born of masochism, perhaps a little martyrdom and almost certainly self-flagellation after a bad first-inning pitch. Stokes took three for 56 to ensure England’s bid for victory was almost impossible rather than outright impossible.
61st Test: against South Africa in Cape Town, 2020
47 and 72, 0-34 and 3-35 (England won by 189 runs)
Judging Stokes by statistics is as wrong as trying to measure love. He became the third highest run-getter and joint fourth highest wicket-taker in the 2020 Cape Town Test; He was also the undisputed player of the match. There have been far more spectacular performances, notably the 258 game played on the same ground in 2016 – but England went on to draw that game, so what was the point. Four years later Stokes’ selfless play, making 72 off 47 balls, produced a declaration while also allowing Dom Sibley to score his first Test century without leaving his comfort zone. A day later, in the final hour of the match, Stokes called for the last three wickets to seal the series. Stokes lives up to the final over, when everything is at stake, and it’s hard to believe any England player could decide so many matches with time, runs or wickets about to expire. There is a relevant Stokes statistic. He averaged 39 with the bat and 30 with the ball in the first innings of their England Test win, hardly better than his career high. Their averages in the second innings are 48 and 21. While this may not be the full meaning of love for England fans, it describes some of their fondest memories.
87th Test: against Pakistan in Rawalpindi, 2022
41 and 0, 0-35 and 1-69 (England won by 74 runs)
Stokes should have been player of the match in this game too and he made a mess of it all, with bat or ball. England’s stunning injury-time victory, on a pitch so flat it could have produced an untimely Test draw, was the ultimate display of Stokes’ tactical brilliance and relentless positivity. Nasser Hussain described it as the best five-captain day he had ever seen. 1,768 runs were scored in the match; this is a Test record with a positive result. Virus-plagued England scored an eye-popping 506 in just 75 overs on the first day; It was Bazball on metaphorical steroids. On the pitch, Stokes trusted every hunch and rejected every norm. Wicket-taking tactics included an umbrella field, favoring leg slip over orthodox and turning away the new ball. He didn’t let the match stray or his brain rest for a single shot. England had eight men around the bat and the wicketkeeper when Jack Leach, a naturally cautious spinner turned wicketkeeper under Stokes, won the game with just a few minutes remaining.