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Return of x-factor talisman a lift for England

Mike Atherton describes why a transformative Ben Stokes will make his Ashes team-mates walk a little taller.

IT WASN’T an unguarded moment, because the interview was on the record and it was taking place during the morning (Australia time), but I was pleasantly surprised by the candour of Australia’s head coach, Justin Langer, when we spoke last November, 12 months before the Ashes. In particular, I had to rewind the tape recorder and listen again when he said: ‘‘Would I have Ben Stokes in my team? He’d be the first person I’d have in my team, any day of the week.’’

Langer had been recounting an anecdote from the Oval dressing room after the conclusion of the 2019 Ashes. Beers had been taken; players from both sides were mingling, swapping stories after a competitive, nip-and-tuck series.

After a few more beers, Langer had picked up a stray baggy green cap, plonked it on Stokes’s head, picked the allrounder up over his shoulder and carried him out of the room. Wouldn’t mind having him in my side, he was saying.

This is rare praise from an Australian cricketer. Langer was saying, in essence, that they see Stokes as one of them. A winner. A competitor who never knows when he is beaten. A hard bastard.

No-one could have predicted the trajectory of Stokes’s career after that interview with Langer.

He has played just four tests since then, and a handful of ODIs and some T20 and Hundred engagements, after which, in July, through a combination of grief, Covid-induced schedule fatigue, a bad finger break and general exhaustion, he took an indefinite break from the game to focus on his mental health.

And it was only in October, after a second operation on the finger he had damaged at the start of the Indian Premier League, that he began to think of a return to action.

We cannot really guess how things will go after such a lay-off, uncertainty that is heightened by England’s interrupted preparation in Queensland. But I’d like to emphasise the psychological impact of his return, which should not be underestimated.

Sometimes, we forget how important this is. The game is highly data-driven these days, and players are prepared in far greater detail than they ever were. Stock markets are said to be efficient and those who work in the background with cricketers imagine sport could be like that, too. But emotion and psychology are so important there will always be room for the unknown.

I was reminded of all this again when an email pinged into my inbox, trailing a new podcast with sports presenter Mark Pougatch, who was a young backpacker on the 1986-87 Ashes tour, and who has helped those who played in that series relive it for our pleasure.

Not for the first time, the start of that series hinged on the character of one man, Ian Botham.

Phillip DeFreitas was a debutant in the first test at Brisbane and he recalled how he was rooming with his hero, Botham; how, at the eve-of-test dinner, Botham slapped down any talk of defeatism among the team following a shocking run of form, and how, when DeFreitas walked into bat only to be sledged by Merv Hughes, Botham said he’d sort Hughes out. He did, too; taking 22 off one over and scoring a brilliant hundred. DeFreitas felt 10 feet tall by simply being in Botham’s presence.

You cannot push a comparison from 35 years ago too hard, and there are few similarities between the game now and then, but charismatic cricketers have had a transformative effect on matches and players around them since the game began.

These types come along rarely, and Stokes (like, in my experience, Darren Gough, Andrew Flintoff, Botham) is undoubtedly one of those.

It is a curious-looking England squad, with four players (Joe Root, James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Stokes) who would make selection in most England teams throughout history, and others about whom there are question marks and for whom Australia is an unknown. Stokes’s presence will help bridge that gap.

If you don’t believe the kind of impact he has in the dressing room, it’s worth recalling what an insider thinks. Nathan Leamon, England’s analyst, wrote a novel called The Test three years ago, in which only one character, the injured and absent captain Rob, was based on an England cricketer in real life. That was Stokes, and this is how Leamon described Rob: ‘‘He is genuinely a person apart . . . different both in kind and degree to anyone I’ve ever known. It is difficult to describe, hard to capture his presence . . . he is the centre of the room . . . in here, he is rudder, and compass and engine. The whole team, different and disparate, most of them older than he is, follow him without a thought. Without question, without doubt, without fear.’’

Who knows how readily Stokes’s cricketing antennae will become attuned again to the technical demands of the game; early signs in the four-day match against the Lions, when he scored 42 and took a couple of wickets, are hopeful.

His absence has been a long one, though, and maybe we should not expect too much.

That said, his competitive fire is innate and his attitude a given.

Langer and Australia know all about his threat, but England’s players will walk a little taller in his presence as well.

SUNDAY NEWS SPORT

en-nz

2021-12-05T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-05T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281883006627027

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