Test Match Special - Ashes Daily: Ben Stokes – England’s Greatest all-rounder?

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Ben Stokes keeps producing remarkable performances for England especially in the Ashes, but should he now be considered as England’s greatest ever all-rounder? Daniel Norcross speaks to Sir Alastair Cook the captain who brought Stokes into the Test team 10 years ago, whilst TMS numbers guru Andy Zaltzman provides a statistical analysis.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Bring more gear, carry more passengers, face greater challenges. Welcome to the world of Defender, with seating up to eight, ample cargo space and legendary off-road capability. It's built to make the most of every adventure. Learn more at landrover.ca. Hear every ball of every match in the men's and women's Ashes live on Radio 5 Sports Extra and BBC Sounds. I'm Daniel Norcross and welcome to the Ashes Daily podcast. Coverage of the men's and women's series continues across BBC Sounds. In this edition, we're focusing on the England captain Ben Stokes as the player and the man.

We're going to do a deep dive. deep dive into Ben Stokes, the cricketer. He is renowned as one of the, well, what would you say, the top four All-Rounders that England has ever produced, possibly top three, both them, Flintov, Stokes, they get talked about in the same breath. You might argue for Wilf Rhodes and he Zaltzman, but let's stick to scene bowling all-rounders in the modern era.

So yes, we want to look at Ben Stokes, what kind of a cricketer he is. And I say that because his numbers aren't remarkable his batting average wouldn't make him out as one of England's greatest batters his bowling average

wouldn't make him out as one of England's greatest bowlers and yet he somehow finds himself in the thick of the action at some of England's most important moments of course winning two World Cups England the only side the first side and the only side

to hold both white ball world cups simultaneously and he was instrumental in both of them at Lords and the MCG massive venues and he's played here and innings that my correspondent, Alastair Cook, described at the time as the best innings you had ever seen by an English batter. Am I your correspondent?

For now, yes, yes. You can take my bags with you as well, but I'll pack them into the cab when we leave. Well, it was, it was. I mean, he was on course, on course at Lords to maybe have been able to beat that. And ironically, he scored more runs at Lords, didn't he? He got 20 more. but just the way he played that

I was in awe of that innings at the time and now as a as your correspondent I'm glad I said that word at the right time I didn't mess it up because I kind of I was a bit naive about stuff like that back in the day four years ago

because every time it's ever played the head and new thing you're like haggers doing a thing and I pipe up with my one sentence if that one sentence wasn't any good I'd sound all right idea well it was actually I think you found the Moe Jousts or the Moes Joust

well I did I was just that innings for me had everything from walking out the night before and we'll forget how many overs he bowled nonstop

and it was from up the hill wasn't it was it up the hill he bowled I'm gonna say 14 15 overs on the bounce pretty much and then he came back

in the morning and carried on bowling and then to do all that and to bat in that evening where he was he three not out of 60 balls

I mean it was a real like grind grind over my dead body stuff. I'm not getting out because if we are going to win this game, because Joe Root and Joe Denny had played really well, haven't they?

And Delany got out towards the end of the endish of the day, with an hour or so to go. And he just recognised that the only chance of England winning this game was if he was there in the morning. And that's the thing that I'm fascinated by. It's that he plays the situation

so well. If we look at the other two great all-rounders, you know, I mean, Andy Zaltzman will be able to illustrate this in numbers, both them started stratosphericly and then went on a steady decline to the end of his career and yeah I mean there's occasional moments

in 1992 World Cup when he burst back into life against Australia but he was bowling sort of 65 mile per hour Dobb you know Andrew Flintoff had two years

when he was exceptional possibly the best all-round cricketer in the world but with Stokes it doesn't feel like that it feels like he just crops up at these moments it's a bit like

you know Forest Gump or Zellig he just sort of he's just there when history is made. And we talked about just then. You said about how he plays a situation so well. When he first came into the side, he didn't. He batted Ben Stokes' way, the one way of playing.

Which was aggressive. Aggressive and probably without a method, if we're being crude about it when he first came in. Let's say when that was. That's Perth. Perth in 2013. Yeah, but he'd been around the squad, doesn't he? Like he'd been there.

And Paul Collingwood, when he was still playing, he came into an England day once we met up. He said, Ben Stokes, up at ours, remember the name. But he said this guy is unbelievable. He's a really rough diamond now. But he was pushing flower and anyone who would listen to get this guy into whatever lines or whatever representing stuff early because he said you just can't believe what this guy can do.

And obviously he had a little. bit of a bit of a got, did he get, didn't flowers send him home from a, from a tour? He punched a locker. He punched a locker and a thing. And actually, like, stuff like in the nets, he would get out in the nets and he would just turn around and whack the stumps down in his early days of, like, playing for England. Like, and actually, like, Andy and I said, this is not really what you want to see. Like, you get out.

You see one of your, like, in England, perhaps I'll say, like, a kid was watching, like, Ben Stokes practice and then just sees her. his temper go and he would just smash the stumps down so that's kind of where he is was then to where he's got to now is is extraordinary and it's down to one person and that is just him what was it that first attracted because of course he bats and he bowls so was it that he was an all-round package or was it the batting that really sort of sparked the excitement well i reckon as most of these the all-rounders who do but it's his bowling which got him in the team first his ability to take wickets at the fourth seam

and probably had more impact, I reckon, early on in his career with the ball, while he then found his method with the bat as he grew into the Ben Stokes' group. The thing which, when he first turned out, he hit the ball unbelievably hard, timed the ball, unbelievable hard, a great clean striker.

His bowling was quick, he had good skills, more skills than actually people appreciated. with his slightly unusual action he did manage to get the ball to shape away from the right hand and slightly over the perpendicular isn't he when he lets go of it so he creates a natural angle

and with some swing and I mean 2015 was a great example in the five the fifer he got in 2015 when we're down a bowler you know I'm pretty I think it's edge piston is either Edgfried or Trentbridge

I think it might have been Edgpastin when he got Fifer and bowl beautiful swing like proper hooped it both ways there you go there's another example you're down a bowler and suddenly the mind is sharpened isn't it he's not one of four bowlers he's now one of three

and he has to perform I think that when at 2015 he wasn't the player he wasn't that situational player like he wasn't there he hadn't done anything to really like to gain that reputation I don't think at that stage that spell there was outstanding

that's what I'm saying the ball was what kind of dominated his success at that stage and it wasn't consistent success was it it was fleeting but you stuck with him because not stuck with him you just thought right this guy's got to be in the england side he's an he's an absolute he's an absolute winner it hates losing it i'm saying hates losing absolutely everything table tennis golf someone hits it further than him he's so angry which is then really surprised when he goes into his leadership and he's he's openly said i the result doesn't bother me as much as how we play which is

really strange because I've just having him in my head as probably the most competitive person I've ever met. It's extraordinary, isn't it? And when you think back to 2015, where you started there, talking about bowling, he was left out of the World Cup team.

He went on a pretty poor run of form, didn't he? He sort of lost his game in a way, and it's crazy to believe that he went into that World Cup without him, but I've got to remember that he wasn't actually doing the things that we associate with Ben Stokes. got Andy Zaltzman alongside me, who has been crunching many a number.

Yeah, well, the overall numbers for Ben Stokes. He's passed 6,000 runs in this matches, batting average for his career, 36.613 centuries. He has 197 test wickets at 32 and 98 catches in 95 tests. He's one of only three players, was 6,000 runs and over 100 wickets with Garfield Sobers and Jacques Callis. You mentioned the comparison between him. and Botham and Flintov. One of the sort of similar-ish statistics, Flintoff ended up averaging just under 32 with the bat,

33 with the ball, but had those peak Flintoff for a relatively short time was extraordinary average, I think over 40 with about under 25 with the ball, and a lot of wickets per match, and he was over four wickets per match, which is something Stokes has never been a sort of high wickets per match bowler, partly because he's often been the fifth bowler,

but I'll come on to that in a second. Ian Botham, stratospheric at the start of his, career ended up averaging 33 with about 28 with the ball 3803 wickets in 102 matches 14 centuries but the sort of first part of his career the first phase first

sort of third or so of his career was pretty much as well as anyone's ever played cricket and then there was a decline average 50 with a bat almost and 21 with the balls wasn't ever quite that high with the bat but a lot of high impact innings and his bowling stats were incredible averaging around about 20 for his first 200 or wickets

and then the back injury I think affected his bowling and he became less effective. Stokes as you mentioned had a difficult start. His first 20 tests average 20 batting and just over 40 bowling and has that in common with Broad and Anderson

both average around about 40 in their first 20 tests so it's interesting that three of England's major players and major bowlers in recent years have had difficult starts their careers and improved through that. Then his next 19 tests 44 with about 20

with the ball and he's been part from a slight dip with the bat after he's he missed that period of cricket after the incident in Bristol in 2017 he's been pretty consistent ever since one of the interesting things with his bowling is that he's bowled less in in recent years in terms of you know the percentage of overs the England of bowled he for the first of half of his career they bowled 14% of England's overs since then 10% this year a lot a lot less. But his bowling stats have got better. His averages come down. And it's interesting that he's been used less, but he's bowled a lot of England's longest spell. So they've used him in a much more targeted way, and he's been very effective with that. Since 2019, there have been 11 spells by England

Seamers of over 10 overs, and Stokes has bowled nine of them, including all five since he's been captain. So he has these, he sort of picks his moments now as a bowler. And as a, as a, as a he talked about his situational play the Lord's 100 was his third fourth innings 100 in tests only three other England players have three fourth innings hundreds

Jeff Boycott, Graham Gooch and Herbert Sutcliffe and in the ashes only Sutcliffe and Don Bradman have three fourth innings hundreds other than Stokes and all of his fourth innings hundreds have been 120 or more and there's only one player in test history with three fourth innings hundreds

of 120 or more that's Eunice Khan who had four of them. So those sort of testament to you know how as you say he's not maybe sort of churned out the numbers in the way that say someone like Jacques Callis did particularly with the bat but he has been sort of explosively effective on

numerous occasions. It's an incredibly fine quality to have when you captained him what did that what do that mean for you how you would deploy Stokes? Well I obviously got Ben at the beginning of his career. Yeah not when he's now

produced more consistent results and unbelievable, obviously, the World Cup. We had the double hundred in South Africa, which was just the kind of the first time where I think the world sat up and saw his talent, how good he can be. Two-five-eight, wasn't it? No, I remember that. I mean, he was, I think he was six-year-old not out overnight, and we're in a good position. And I said after we're, you know, a very flat wicket, and we were four down. Him and Johnny had a good partnership made before.

I was like just stokes you just remember just get yourself back in you know don't expect you to be quite so easy you know trying to guide him a bit anyway so I went I went to the toilet the first two balls I heard this cheer I was like oh no I heard another cheer I was like oh god we haven't lost two wickets right he just hit his first two balls before it was like oh he's playing himself in yeah thanks for listening

well where were we going with this before I was to well it's yeah so how I can you deploy him I just I tried to when I because we could see him we just try to, along with Andy Flower and Peter Moore's, just try to shape his practice a little bit more, without saying disciplined, a little bit more structured to his practice. Because when I say, I've never seen a person work harder in training than Ben Stokes, because he would then, he'd catch for the longest, throw for the longest, bowl for the longest, and bat for the

longest. Obviously, I'll do my batting. That's the only thing I did in a bit of catching, but all the other stuff, you know, he did that on top of, because he, he did that on top of, because he was trying to be the best door around cricket he worked and I've kind of seen sort of all the work he did kind of when I was captain

and probably beginning of Joe Root and he kind of got all the rewards later on from it and just a good reminder of me that yes he might be unbelievably talented and he is he's a freak in terms of his natural ability

of cricket and sportsmanship and natural ability but he had to work so hard or did work so hard to do it did you sense when you first And indeed, you know, in the years after that when Joe Root was captained him,

and I'm sure you were talking many times to Joe and other members of the team, did you sense that he would be as inspirational a leader as he's become? Because, I mean, he really is, you know, notwithstanding present company, one of the most extraordinarily inventive captains I've ever seen. And he led in the dressing room because of his personality in terms of, and people do, don't they? People get drawn to those kind of characters, the alpha male, or the person who wants to be in everything.

He has a big fear of missing out on anything. He wants to know what's going on. But what surprised me about his leadership is how he's adapted his method. He's evolved. He's involved himself. He's the thing about the Chinese farmer about luck. Because I said, oh, good luck. He said, oh, there's no thing.

I said bad luck. He said, oh, there's no such a thing is bad luck. And he sent me the Chinese farmer thing. and just shows his intelligent as in like that's the way he wants to operate whether you believe in it or you don't believe in what Ben Stokes is trying to do he's been given the authority

of being England captain Rob Keyes said I want you to be in captain he's gone in there and done it his way the way he wants to do it so when he hands the cat back which at some stage you'll have to hand the cat back it doesn't last forever he will sit down and go

I have absolutely zero regrets about it and I was talking at I had dinner with him last night we get onto a bit of captaincy stuff and you're kind of drawn into him you're drawn into his thing and we disagreed about things and there's not like a we weren't arguing or saying

and it's just people's different opinions people can lead in very very different ways and what's I think just talking to the lads how emotionally intelligent it is with people has surprised me from the guy who's this he was brash but he was

yeah he'll say get angry or get frustrated and, you know, whack the stumps when he got out to a bloke now who really understands the emotional side and the mental side of the game and that's to do with all his other experiences off the field throughout his career. It was incredibly impressive. I would never have thought, never would have thought those eight or nine years ago

and he sat in where we were last night having dinner and having the conversations with Ben Stokes about leadership and I was almost learning. I was gripped by what he was saying. And you're talking there about, man management and that form of leadership which is it's clear the players adore him and they adore the environment that he and brenda mcgallum have created but there's also the a tactical astuteness you know just by you know when you're commentating something weird's happening when you know

normally we say in comes a bowler two slips gully cover extra mid off mid on midwicket and a long leg and you can get it all out in about three seconds and i'm frequently going he's got a long short leg he's got a short long leg he's got one man 40 yards in off the boundary on the off side you know it's just they're incredibly

inventive patterns and they're not tricksy they're quite deliberate and his players bowl to those plans and if they don't work quite quickly he will change them as well and he wouldn't be going down right in those fields on a piece of paper the night before he would be

he just plays the moment and I think we see that with his batting we see that with his bowling and you see it with his captaincy you know that kind of looking this is what I want this team to do this is what the plan is now and we need to field just about

there and you know what I mean it's not on like a backup and it's never a position that's easy for me to describe no not at all I'm glad you have to do it so yeah I've been incredibly impressed like all these evolution of leadership and the evolution of his captaincy

or, you know, they're getting judged, what he'll end up getting judged on. He has made probably the biggest impact on a cricketing side that I can remember in terms of his leadership thing. From what he's, you know, the style of the way the team plays now, you know, there's no other captain who's had as bigger influence on his troops as he has.

And he's done it his way. then so he's going down in history as an inspirational captain there's no doubt about it even if he loses his next few games because people are going to play the English cricket I think has changed to start even the next captain who comes in him they might not be as brash they might not be as bold as Ben Stokes they might not have declared on on day one

of an Ashes series of 380 for 8 but I tell you what there'll be there'll be certain times when players do go berserk under the next leader and they score 90 off 10 overs and the sweeps come out off seamers and it will almost be the norm

at certain times and that will be down to like Ben Stokes' legacy you know ultimately you're going to get judged on results in big series at the end of it in the cold light today

I can't see any other way of getting judged alongside the influences had on how a side plays test cricket He's such a curious cricketer And this is why I want to bring Andy in Because when we think about his batting innings Yes, we think about those incredible sixes

Ed Heli, we think about them the other day At Lords, we think about that Was it got the fastest hundred at Lords? Was it against New Zealand? That was 2015 and he had I think 90 And did he leave? Then he left one, didn't he? He batted beautifully.

We were like 30 for four on him and Joe Roo And he left a Rudy got out caught on the boundary For 98 and then he just left a Left a spinner. Is it Craig? I'm going to go Craig. And then we were behind in the game

and I think I was a 90-old when he came in and I got 100 and I was under and four when he got out on 103 or something. It was just, you know, I had the best seat in the house of that. But was that, you see there's a situation in which he's counter-attacked. He's taken upon himself to do that. We think of his 258, it's explosive.

People who perhaps just, you know, watch cricket casually sort of enjoy it, they might be perplexed as to how does it happen how does he turn the tap on and why isn't it always on it's obviously not as easy as that but actually in a lot of those innings I mean the one against New Zealand notwithstanding

you get a very slow start you can take quite a while to get in and do you have data on that? Well yeah that's actually more in the latter half of his career so I've looked at his all his scores of 50 or more since 2019 of the times when he's taken

99 balls or more to reach 50 which is nine of those innings seven of them he's gone on to reach 100 and of the quicker ones only once has he gone on to reach 100 so his bigger innings have all been from a more solid base, not all but almost all been from a more steady start and then expanding and again that I guess facts into that situation. In terms of his

captaincy and you know this series the stats before this game how England had scored more runs off the bat for the same number of wickets but managed to lose. I think that's testament to the bowling plans have been highly effective on paper the averages of the Australian top order

you'd think that they're a much stronger batting side than England. Stronger side bound for man aren't they? I think they've got faster bowlers than we saw in the first two tests and yet it's been very close and Stokes presents opposition teams with puzzles they're not used to solving whether it's the nature of the

fielding positions, the nature of the bowling, the sort of unremitting short pitch bowling, the opening the bowling with short pitch that they did in Pakistan. In Pakistan, they won three tests. Now, the batting was tremendous, but it was against a historically inexperienced and quite a weak Pakistan attack without Shahin Shah-Shah Friedi. But they managed to take 60 wickets on flat pitches. Australia won 1-0 in their three-test series. New Zealand had two draws, but England somehow managed to concoct 60 wickets.

And a lot of that was, I think, through this, the inventive approach. Now, you see that, you know, the Basbalian approach in batting is more obvious, but there has been this incredible invention and flexibility in the field. And it's invention with method. It's not just random, you know, his captain is not just random thing. You know, I like the line when he took over as Captain C. I don't know whether he said it to me or he said it in the media, but he said every man captain gets criticized.

you know, whether you win or lose or you're considered one of the better ones or wherever you want to judge England captains and everyone's got an opinion about an England captain. And that's the point. Everyone's got an opinion about it, so you're going to get criticised. And he said, when I'm going to get criticised,

I want to get criticised for doing it my way. And that's, what more could you ask for a lead? He also, in his tenure as captain, has taken two quite different approaches to batting, hasn't he? When he first started, he did come charging down the wicket. He frustrated a lot of people last year by what felt like throwing his wicket away, coming down the wicket to Carl Jameson.

His innings felt shorter. They would be explosive, but there weren't the innings that we've seen in this series where he really genuinely has batted in that way. We're more familiar with Stokes when he makes these hundreds. And is that because, you know, in a way, he's trying to set the tone. And the tone he wanted to set to start with

was of courageous, fearless batting. I mean, I remember at Karachi. He came out to bat. You remember, Andy. He came out to bat himself. He put himself up the order because he wanted to win the game that night. Now, the laws of physics were going to make it almost impossible because the sun was setting.

They were only going to be about 20 overs. But he was going to have a dart at whatever that target was, about 170, 180. Now, previous England teams set 180-od in the fourth innings of a test match in Pakistan. when there's 20 overs left in the day are hoping that they could get to the close at 45 for 1, aren't they?

Absolutely, and he's changed the mentality of the way England played. The reason he batted like he did and he didn't do that in the first test match he played, I'm pretty sure. You know, it wasn't straight away he was charging down. It was after the second or third game when I think probably evolved his mind

and this is how I want this side to play and he said, look, if I'm going to ask you to have clarity on how you play and if you want to take a shot on, you've got my back in if he doesn't then go and do it it's very hard for Harry Brut to come in the side and say well you're asking us

to really run towards the danger but he was the biggest example of maybe being a sacrificial lamb but to hammer his leadership point home and the damage has now been done not the damage his message has hit home so he now can go back to batting which probably for him as well

he probably enjoyed that process and like this and he's probably, you know, as I say, he's very cricket intelligence. Actually, it doesn't suit my game as well. We had all, remember all those conversations, actually. The one person that suits the Basbo way of batting or this new way of batting is actually Ben Stokes suits him less. Yeah.

Because, as you said, second ball, he was running down the wicket where someone like, Zach Crawley actually looks quite far more comfortable running down the wicket than Ben Stokes does, or Johnny Bairstow or Harry Brooks. So it's been extraordinary. it's been great to be involved in his end I'm just thinking as he was saying all that I was thinking about the truly great

all-round cricketers we've mentioned both and we've mentioned Flintoff Jacques Callis will be another Gary Sobers would be another Richard Hadley apart from say Imran Khan I can't think of very many of them

who have been good captains you know he and both of them famously struggled as a captain. Andrew Flintoff wasn't a great captain. You know, Gary Sobers wasn't a great captain and part of the problem is that they're so good that they kind of can't quite understand where other people are coming from. Do you think that

perhaps because of the difficulties he went through when he was a mere mortal when he first started his career he understands that test cricket he's actually really rather difficult and he has a sort of better empathy therefore for his own teammates? Absolutely. I think he's probably experienced more in his life on and off the field more highs more lows than probably anyone and he that's what I say he really understands you know the him himself now his cricket and he's very clear on how he wants to captain his team and no he wouldn't have

read any leadership books he wouldn't have sat in any of those sports psychology meetings as a team when you talk about leisure and have any interest in it. But, you know, he finds interest in something and then he grabs it. I've been, you know, I'll lack, I think, him as a cricketer. He is the great question, where would he rank in terms of... That's where I'm going. I don't think you can not...

Clearly, I'm very, very going to be biased to him. I don't know how you cannot have a Ben Stokes in one of your all-time levels, just for the fact how he can change. a game and influence a game. Yes, you need your Jack Callis's averaging 57, catches everything and takes wicked. You need, of course, you can have,

but you do need a spark or someone at six who can pretty much change a whole, you know, the way Australia, one person changed the way how they pretty much play when there's a chase on because of him. If you had a fully fit, Ben Stokes, and you can only choose between people, Peak both of, peak Flintoff, and Peak Stokes.

Which one do you take? Well, I think it's between both them and Stokes. I think they're a notch above Freddie. I know, like, because how many times... I know that 2005 series, obviously, Andrew, was unbelievable. And either side of it as well. But we'll look that there. I know you're saying absolute peak,

but Ben Stokes has delivered over a longer period of time in the absolute... pinnacle of pressure situations like the you know like the freddie on day five of oval you know he didn't get the hundred i'm not slagging freddie off i'm saying but there's more chance of ben stokes doing something there than so i'm having ben stokes ahead of freddie i'm going to be i don't didn't watch beefy enough he was just before my time if i'm without sitting on the fence so i have to pick ben stokes because of what i've seen with my own eyes and that's so and that's a head of beefy now you know beefy is is you know everyone says

he's the greatest all around in England have so who am I to argue but if you haven't seen him you haven't seen him in there it's very hard to very hard to justify the TMS podcast hear every ball of every match in the men's and women's ashes live on radio five sports extra and BBC sounds on valentine's day. 2004, one of Italy's greatest cyclists was found dead in mysterious circumstances. In Italy, there's growing mystery about the death of one of the country's sporting heroes. Pantani, known as the pirate, because of the yellow bandana he wore around his head. In November 2021, new evidence had supposedly come to light, alleging that the Italian

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The TMS podcast. Keep up to date with live text and highlights during the match on the BBC Sport website and app. Andy, do you have any other numbers that illustrate the unique qualities of of Stokes because I guess what I'm constantly baffled by with him I also hope he's not listening to this I'm sorry I hope he's not listening to this as we speak because his ego his head one gets better at

the room or all the nice things I've been saying about him well you know how can you not let's face it he's brought such incredible joy with some of those inings and some of those moments with the ball as well unless we forget I'm slightly concerned that when you talk to me about what a hard trainer he is

you know you put miles in your legs when you train don't you so I suppose You know, you don't get to be the player you are without putting you the training, but maybe we're living with the legacy of that now. Yeah, I think we probably are. But also, he's a cricketer who will dive full length, headfirst

to try and stop the ball to save one run and put his body through agony to try and do it. And that's how he's played. There's no point then in, you know, like doing anything else. That's not how he operates as a cricketer.

And if he didn't, he would, wouldn't have been the player he is. Yes, now he might have to, you know, as we saw yesterday when he's something wrong with his glute or as butter as you like to call it, you know, he evolved. He started standing at second slip. We might have to see a little bit more of that.

He's extraordinarily adaptable. Also, temperamentally, you can tell a lot from the way he rather, I don't think he likes DRS. I think he is actually fine with an umpire giving a decision that he doesn't want, you know, so how's at, nod out. He has to be persuaded to do DRS, which strikes me that he's actually very quick

to compartmentalise something that's gone wrong. So he hasn't got the decision, no one, charge back to your mark and bowl again. Whereas having to think about ways of gaming the system doesn't, don't really sit with him. I think he's one of the better cats as I've seen at DRS because he... Because his instinct is not to do it.

Well, I think, no, but I think his instinct, he goes straight on his instinct straight away. And it took me, I reckon, a couple of years of my captaincy to, we have to have had some prickly DRSers in our team. Oh, really? Naming, no names of the opening bowler. No naming two. Two opening bowlers.

And if that goes, you know, if it goes wrong, you know, the fallout is worse. But when you've got someone telling you it's out, in the emotion of it as you've run, you've done your 17 overs, sweating and suddenly you've got this thing you desperately think is out and you're thinking oh I'm not sure it is but he's imploring with you to get it's a very hard thing to take that emotion out of it and what you know the method which I tried to

use towards the end was like you would you'd go with the bowler no you go your natural instance so my first thing you know we set up here and we go and it's hit on the pad like what do you reckon oh I reckon that's high that's what my first thing but then have I got someone someone else is going that is 100% definitely not high

then I might change my mind but if everyone goes oh yeah not sure then I'll stick with my answer or vice versa and that's what and Stokesy seems to do it calm

a lot more calmly than I ever did and I don't know what his record is at DRSC but I reckon he's not too too bad at it I imagine

well Andy I'm sure has those numbers but I don't say he's got them immediately to hand what numbers do you have immediately to hand well there's

we talked a lot about Steve Smith's second innings struggles. Ben Stokes in the Ashes has a really extraordinary second innings record. His batting average in second innings in 19 innings with four centuries, including those three fourth innings hundreds. The average is 50.8 out of all England players who've batted 50 or more times in second innings in Ashes tests, he's got the fifth highest average in Ken Barrington Herbert Sutcliffe, Graham Thorpe and Dennis Compton. Also averages 26 with the ball in second the innings of Ash's tests. In first innings

he average 26 with the bat and 50 with the ball, a bizarre symmetry. I'm not sure what you can read into that, why he's not better in first inning. The batting is more surprising, isn't it? I mean, bowling in the first innings can be difficult, as we know, the pitch is supposed to be a bit better. I mean, that is quite a massive disparity, 50

to 26. But the batting you'd expect to go the other way around, but that rather speaks, it seems to me, of somebody who gets focus as the match reaches its pinch point. And we talks a lot about, you know, I want to chase. So I'd never heard this phrase in a test match before.

People would say, I want a bat or I want a bowl. They wouldn't say, I want a chase. He's already thinking about the fourth innings. And that's the point at which his laser sharp focus comes to the four. Well, you started off this segment saying Ben Stokes is a situational player, isn't he? And there's no more situational than when the games down at the crunch moment of him walking out to bat in the fourth innings when there's no there's no second chances there's no second

innings there's no oh it'll be okay tomorrow it is now and ever and quite clearly he thrives on that Andy but just further on the nature of his players you talked about this situational play in one day international's averages 45 chasing 34

when England bat first and we saw that that famous innings in the World Cup final that hated by a few little moments of luck managed to get England to parity in the super over So in T20, it's really quite a bad record as a T20 batter. So up to the last group game of the World Cup at the end of last year, he was averaging 18 in international T20, then made 46 not out to get England through the last group match

to qualify for the semifinals, didn't have to bat in the semifinal, then 52 not out, just over a runner ball in the final. And so he's never, oddly, for someone who has the range of stroke and power he has, he's never been a particularly effective T20 batter but in those situations where he didn't have to score that quickly there weren't huge targets but England were in difficult situations the amazing sort of precision he has when facing a target came came to the fall it's intriguing i mean there are certain other players a little like that i think of joss butler who i always sort of thought in the first endings of a test match might have been slightly daunted by the blank canvas of opportunities

that his incredible skill could bring to the moment. But actually, once the game had sharpened up, he nearly saved a game at Adelaide with an incredible backs of the wall innings that only ended with a freakish wicket, if you recall. His first century for England, I think, was against India, wasn't it? At Trent Bridge, in what was a losing cause,

but there was no other option. That was where they were at. It was in the fourth innings. And I suppose both of them are actually, you know, they both happen to be the captains of England's whiteball and red ball. it's a very good quality to have isn't it? To know

to have good game smarts because that's really what you want you're captured to have Well you want as many players as you can to have it Yes but I think I think as a I think we're finding out that

just the way we've discussed this and the way we've you know the way we have discussed Ben Stokes and his numbers suggests one thing but people who have seen him play will see it

is a totally different player that this game's smart and being able to handle situations and play the way he can play when it matters most you just can't buy that you just can't buy it I don't know if you can train it certain people have it and a lot of people

have it and a lot of people don't have it what incredible contrast they were at Lords he and Stuart Broad when the stumping incident regardless of what you think about it when that took place Stuart Broad came out and I felt that he was fueled by righteous fury

and he then got in behind the ball and defended for his life and was there to do everything he possibly could for his captain at the other end because he was in some marvellous performative space where you know he's nor believe the villain but now the baddies were there

Ben Stokes on the other hand had not a single word didn't say a single word the moment it happened his eyes changed and he took himself away didn't get involved at any point all the time Stuart was being

you know was winding up the opponents he was never involved in any part of that and that sort of again spoke to me a little bit about the character of Stokes in the moment what makes him such a good situational player is that he's obviously read that situation

knows exactly what he now needs to do because England have lost that sixth wicket he's now batting with a tail and he's able to flip a swing Now, talking as somebody who's played so many innings yourself, how difficult is it to be playing one way and then, by necessity, flip that switch and go in a completely different direction? You're talking to a wrong person about that?

Possibly am. I was hoping as you're talking again, you're going to slag me off. But I didn't have the ability to change the gears like he did. So that wasn't one of my strengths or whatever. But just go back to that situation. I think he read it very well that he didn't need two England batsmen going back Australia. Brody was quite happy to take every one of those Australian people down himself. And Stokes said, well, he can do that.

He will drag the attention and I'll just do what I do. Get into my bubble. But there's other times when the side needs a scrap to get into metaphorically on a cricket field, he could be the one leading it. So that's why he reads, in my opinion, he reads the situation as well as anyone else. He didn't need to get involved with Stuart Broad. Stuart Broad was off. He was at, and once Ben Stokes probably realized that he was getting him behind and doing his job,

unbelievably well, he could just leave Brody and get on and focus on himself. How much longer do you think we've got of Ben Stokes? I know this is speculation, and I don't want you to betray any confidences. But when we watch him in this part of his career, it's marvelous theater but it brings a wince to your face you see just bending down to get a ball and a knee jars and then talking about

his glute yesterday everything looks so painful assuming that he doesn't play ODI cricket for England he's not retired from T20s but assuming he doesn't play ODIs England don't play another test series until February

in India after this so he could in theory you know, hang up his boots for six months try and get fitter, rested. Is he incentivised, do you think, to keep going and try that route? Because obviously the problem he's got with his knee is chronic, isn't it?

Well, I don't know actually what the problem is with his knee, so clearly it's not great because, you know, they haven't operated on it because they haven't had time. Do they need to operate? I don't know, so there's no point of me speaking about his knee. what I do know he is this isn't the end

whatever happens in this series isn't the end of Ben Stokes and his captain where he wants to take this team for he for all the other riches around the world he could go and earn he loves playing test cricket for England and lead in this team and he knows it's not going to last forever

but I think he's around I think he's more unfinished business with this team so it's not I don't think it's in the near future well he's transformed the side and he's made an incredibly exciting product as they say these days

but he's got a whole load of players behind him who are just following his lead and it is absolutely marvellous to watch it can be frustrating and bewildering sometimes you wonder what an earth is going off out there as Fred Truman used to say but you can't deny that he's taken aside that won one match out of 17

and they're now going toe to toe with the best team in the world The TMS podcast Watch highlights of every day of every test on IPlayer The Albert Park Circuit Longitude and Latitude 144.9 51035 degrees East 37.8

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