- Ben Stokes’ Epic Journey to the Fifth Day at the Oval
- Crucial Fielding Moments – Catch Controversy and Redemption
- Stokes’ Approach: Defeat Doesn’t Define You, Victory Is Everything
They say that 10,000 hours of practice are required to achieve expert status. Ben Stokes’ journey to the fifth day at the Oval, England captain, 2-1 down in the Ashes, with approximately 50 overs remaining, Steve Smith in, and his team still requiring seven wickets to level the series, was much longer.
All those matches he has played, for schools, clubs, county, and country, through the age groups in Christchurch and Wellington and Cockermouth, for Cumbria, Northern Schools, for Durham’s academy, their firsts and seconds, for England’s under-18s, under20s, and Lions, T20, Test, and one-day international sides, on and on and on, in the Big Bash, the Super Smash, and the Indian Premier League, years of training, of batting, bowling,
With his palms on his knees, Stokes waited as Moeen skipped towards the crease. The ball floated up, landed, bit and spit off the pitch, struck Smith’s mitts, and then flew up, well over Stokes’s head, until he leaped and, like a child reaching for an apple just out of reach, plucked it back down with his fingertips. Moeen turned on his heels and spread his arms wide in an appeal, Jonny Bairstow leaped into the air, and Joe Root walked in from the slip to join him. It never occurred to them that Stokes, the greatest fielder for England, had blown it. They were so confident that the ball was lost that they never thought to search for it.
Which was lying on the ground in front of Stokes’ feet. As his arm came down and around in jubilation, his hand made contact with his thigh, and the ball slipped from his grasp like a lemon seed.
However, arbiter Joel Wilson must have been paying close attention. He gazed before shaking his head. “Not ruled out”. Stokes displayed a sheepish grin as his teammates implored him to review the past. He must have hoped against hope that the third umpire would rule that he had held onto the ball for just the right amount of time.
As far as the rest of us are aware, this was Stokes’s second regret in this series. Not the declaration on the first day at Edgbaston or batting on for so long on the third day at Old Trafford, but the instant he dropped Nathan Lyon when Australia needed 38 runs to win with two wickets remaining in the first Test. Again, he leaped into the air to make a high, one-handed catch above his head but lost the ball when his hand touched the ground upon his descent.
“God, I’m reliving it in my head right now,” Stokes said afterward. “The ball was in my possession, but I was unable to catch it.
It was a case of “shoulda, coulda, or woulda.” And this was another, giving him two more than he desired. This one also appeared crucial, as if it were England’s last, best opportunity to dismiss Smith, the one wicket they desperately needed before he snatched the game from them.
This may be the one thing that no one has ever truly grasped about how Stokes plays the game and what he has learned over the years. Consider that night in Kolkata in 2016, the World T20 final against the West Indies, when Stokes was bowling the final over and Carlos Brathwaite struck him for six, six, six, six. Consider what he said to Jofra Archer before the 2019 World Cup final super over before he bowled. “What happens next doesn’t define you as a cricketer.”
It is not whether you win or lose that matters, but how you perform. This does not imply that victory is less important to Stokes than to anyone else, only that defeat is.
He has spent the past 18 months explaining this to the press, the public, and, most importantly, his athletes. When you have skin in the game, you remain in the game, but you don’t win anything if you don’t play in the game. Just because you refuse to fear defeat does not mean you must enjoy it when it occurs. Especially when your error has cost everyone money.
Stokes was out bowling during the tea break, staggering in on his injured leg and prepared to make amends with one last spell. In the end, it was unnecessary. It wasn’t anything he would do that would win the Test; it was what he had already done, in all the months he’d spent teaching his team to believe, so that, with seven wickets needed and less than 50 overs remaining, they played as if the task could still be accomplished and the game could still be won. As wicket by wicket fell, the audience roared and applauded so loudly that the sound must have reverberated throughout the entire city.
Stokes, too, had his moment when Pat Cummins entered the game. Cummins, his opponent, was the last Australian who could triumph. He caused England to pay when Stokes dismissed Lyon at Edgbaston. And here was Stokes, back in at leg slip, and here was Moeen bowling, and here was Stokes again, reaching, this time to his left as the catch flew towards him, and then sprinting off yelling in triumph. He held on to the ball until he stopped moving, then he threw it very high into the air and waited directly underneath it until it landed safely back in his hands.
