3 minute readAt the time of writing, it looks like Ben Stokes’ left leg needs to be re-hamstrung after a twanging incident while running a single for Northern Superchargers earlier in the week. (Would the same thing have happened had he been playing for Northern Gentle Amblers? We can never know.) This
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2 minute readIt is halfway through day two. The score is 275-1. The last 28 wickets in the series have all fallen to spin. Ben Stokes hasn’t bowled in a match since June. Rohit Sharma faces on 103, thinking about 203 – maybe even 303. Stokes knocks his off stump back first
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3 minute readSome pretty big news has broken since England (finally) touched down in India for their five-Test series. It’s not Virat Kohli missing the first two games for personal reasons. It’s not Harry Brook missing (probably, maybe) the whole series, also for personal reasons. It’s to do with Ben Stokes. We
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2 minute readA few weeks ago we asked whether Ben Stokes was definitely a better pick than Harry Brook in England’s World Cup squad. We drew no firm conclusions. Smashing 182 off 124 balls to break the record for the highest score by an England batter in a one-day international (ODI) probably
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3 minute readBen Stokes came out of one-day retirement and immediately got picked for England’s World Cup squad. Of course he did – he’s Ben Stokes. Except he’ll be playing only as a batter. While he’s obviously extremely good at batting and capable of innings few others are… is he definitely, definitely
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3 minute readBad shots are bad shots, but in an age when the dumbest moments are endlessly replayed and dissected, it’s important to at least try and take in the bigger picture. A batter who sometimes plays the wrong shot is nowhere near as bad as a batter who’s always worrying about
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3 minute readBazball is a completely annoying word because any time it’s used – which is basically every other sentence these days – everybody is talking at cross purposes. The foundations for this ongoing noisy surround sound argument lie in the fact that almost no-one knows or acknowledges the definition that Cricinfo
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2 minute readBen Stokes’ incredible attempt to play a twice-in-a-lifetime innings has tragically overshadowed the Lord’s Test’s most extraordinary passage of play: England spending two-thirds of a day bowling nothing but 80mph bouncers and it somehow working out for them. Forget day five. We’ve all seen a Stokes special before and everyone
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4 minute readWe still don’t feel like we know Ollie Robinson all that well, but one thing we’ve concluded is that he is now pretty well established as England’s talker-of-bollocks in chief. Robinson somehow made the headlines last week for a tetchy and sweary outburst at Usman Khawaja after dismissing him for
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4 minute readFew declarations pass without public complaint, but Ben Stokes’ first innings declaration in the first Test of the 2023 Ashes was more controversial than most. People complained when it happened and then they really complained when England lost. England were 393-8, Joe Root was on 118 and Nathan Lyon had
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