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.
Whether it be length-hitting, taking on spinners with fielders placed on the boundary ropes and trying to launch the ball as far and as hard as he can, or trying out new varieties of slower balls, cutters and yorkers, Stokes is regularly the last to leave the training field and the results were there for all to see in Kolkata.
With the bat, for example, with risk-free power-hitting allied to excellent footwork, he smacked the first ball of R Ashwin’s last spell for six and did the same to Bhuvneshwar Kumar, as he and Chris Woakes put on 73 from 40 balls to take England to 321.
With the ball, he won his game of cat and mouse with Virat Kohli, first tucking him up for room then offering him a wide one to hit and watching him slash it to Jos Buttler behind the stumps. Later, his ‘death bowling’ in the 46th and 48th overs, conceding eight runs, castling the dangerous Hardik Pandya and offering a length ball for Ashwin to sky to mid-on, was exactly what skipper Eoin Morgan needed to keep his side in contention.
Furthermore, just as pleasing for those who have also wondered whether Stokes’ famous short fuse may stand between him and greater things would have been his exchange with umpire Dharmasena at the end of his spell. The official had called his final delivery a wide even though, with Kedar Jadhav making room on the leg side, Stokes had merely followed him with a slow bouncer which crept past his left shoulder. Technically, Dharmasena was correct but it was a harsh call and scant reward for highly intelligent bowling and, in the past, it might well have lit the blue touchpaper. Now Stokes and the ump were all smiles, as, remarkably considering his recent history on this ground, Stokes had been for almost all of the match, indicating, perhaps, just how completely at home he now is in his own skin and reminding us that it was not ever thus.
For many who show prodigious talent when they first hit the England side – as Stokes did on the otherwise exclusively grim 2013 Ashes tour – as tricky as the problem that everyone else thinks you should live up to it every time, is the problem that you do as well and it has proved insurmountable for many first hampered, later confused and eventually crushed by the burden of unrealistic expectations.
In Stokes’ case, the opposite applied.
Never believing he was as good as others told him he was, a state of mind that may have persuaded him towards those youthful indiscretions that led to him being sent home from a Lions tour Down Under, after those early successes standing up to Mitchell Johnson with bat and ball, a lack of consistency fed his nagging self-doubt and led to a potentially crippling loss of self-confidence.
As time progressed without much sign of improvement, those feelings converted to anger and frustration and woe betide any chirpy opponent or locker room door that got in his way. Which is why, even though by the time Brathwaite killed his dream of World T20 glory in Kolkata last April, Stokes had already secured his status as England’s go-to man at all levels on the international stage, no-one quite knew how deep and damaging those scars might run and why they, Stokes and his supporters will have revelled in his faultless performance there this week.
Lessons learned by Stokes that night will ensure that he carries on working just as hard now to maintain his progress, as he did to try and rid himself of the worst memory of his professional life.
That, allied to the confidence of finally knowing this is the stage on which he was born to perform, means there really is no end to how high this guy could fly.
Next stop, West Indies and a possible rematch with Brathwaite. Now that will be worth watching…
This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper, January 27 2017
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