It was difficult to know precisely when the signs became ominous for West Indies. Was it when Ben Stokes hit his first boundary, a glorious, scene-stealing on drive? Or was it when, after the introduction of the spinner, he played a thunderous reverse-sweep followed by a straight driven six into the 3Ws stand, followed by an even bigger hit that landed on the roof and became stuck in the gutter?
Whenever it was, there was an early murmur from those who have seen enough of Stokes that a special was on the cards. Indeed it was and he duly brought the Kensington Oval to fever pitch in making his first Test hundred for 20 months, helping to propel England to their second-highest innings on the ground. Not just any old hundred, either, but one made in the kind of belligerent, scorched-earth manner that has so endeared him to a generation of England supporters.
In this kind of mood, Stokes is not just a crowd pleaser but an inspiration to team-mates as well. After a declaration with the best part of a session to go, Matthew Fisher then took a wicket with his second ball in Test cricket, which occasioned just as much celebration and emotion as Stokes had caused earlier. Both players have lost fathers who were instrumental in their careers, Stokes recently and Fisher a decade ago, and both pointed to the heavens when they made their mark.
Stokes had promised himself and his team-mates that a good tour was in the offing after a difficult Ashes when he found it impossible to get up to speed after a long lay-off. He sat out the Indian Premier League auction in order to give Test cricket his full consideration; he has been putting in extra training sessions, a sure sign of his dedication; and has been followed around by a television crew for a forthcoming documentary, and wants, no doubt, to show his best side in it.
Australia’s players were puzzled in the Ashes: why, they wondered privately, was Stokes shackled and full of caution? This was not the Stokes they had come to expect. Well, the standard of bowling was certainly higher in the Ashes than he faced here, and the pitches were more bowler-friendly than this sleepy, nondescript Kensington surface, but it was still good to see the free-spirited cricketer return.
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After Dan Lawrence’s late dismissal on the first evening, the stage was set, but it was a cautious enough start. A clue to the limit of West Indies’ ambition from the off was the presence of sweepers on either side to Joe Root, which allowed England’s captain to gently tick over the strike. A single here, thank you very much, a single there. Stokes was inert for the opening 40 minutes, save for one glorious on drive off Jayden Seales, the pose from which he held ever so helpfully for the snappers all around the ground.
Other than one optimistic review against Root, West Indies did not sniff a wicket in the first hour, the rate exactly three runs an over, the signs ominous. Drinks brought the introduction of Alzarri Joseph and Veerasammy Permaul and Stokes immediately creamed Joseph over mid-off. This indignity produced a long stare from the bowler, but on this surface, Joseph had little further recourse. It was a case of storing the memory for more propitious circumstances further down the line.
It was in this second hour when Stokes began to inflict some pain. He took 18 in one over from a despondent Joseph, including a remarkable straight six that flew close to the windows of the Cozier, Coppin and Short media centre, and hit Permaul for three sixes, two into the 3Ws stand and one to the leg side into a very strong cross breeze. Between them, Joseph and Permaul conceded 77 runs in 11 overs and Stokes found himself entertaining the thought of a hundred before lunch from a standing start, which would have been a first by any batsman in England colours.
Starved of a little strike before lunch, he didn’t quite get there. Instead, Root took the applause of supporters twice before Stokes did so again, first when he passed 150 and then while returning to the pavilion on becoming Kemar Roach’s 236th Test victim — one more wicket than Garry Sobers now for Roach — shortly after lunch. Until he missed a ball that angled into his pads, Root had quietly gone along in Stokes’s slipstream, content to play second fiddle. His innings was no less excellent for that.
Stokes’s century, his 11th in Tests, came with a dab into the off side from his 114th ball faced and was celebrated with due deference to his departed father, Ged, who died in December 2020, five months after Stokes’s last Test hundred. The sting had long gone out of the contest by then and it was simply a question of how many England wanted, how greedy Stokes was going to be and whether others would take advantage of the situation as well.
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Jonny Bairstow made a breezy 20 before pulling Joseph to deep square leg. Stokes threw the bat at Kraigg Brathwaite’s filthy lobs, taking two consecutive sixes down the ground before holing out at long-off. Ben Foakes and Chris Woakes eased the total towards the previously unimaginable riches of 500. Watching the end stages of the innings, the thought occurred that never can runs have come so easily to England batsmen on this ground.
Paul Collingwood, who made 96 on the only occasion England have scored more runs here, now had an opportunity to watch his debutant bowlers, Fisher and Saqib Mahmood. Fisher had an interesting start, conceding a boundary with his first ball, taking a wicket with his second as John Campbell wafted around off stump, and getting a telling off from the umpire fourth ball for running on the pitch. He bowled at a steady pace, found some bounce from his high action and almost had another when an edge nearly carried to slip.
Mahmood was the fifth bowler used by Root and came bounding in from the Joel Garner end for the final spell of the day. He looked a little sharper than Fisher through the air but generated less bounce from a slighter lower arm and has yet to get his account up and running. After the early loss of Campbell, Brathwaite did especially well to battle through to the close after captaining for more than 150 overs in the field. He is a resilient cricketer.
It was not a day for statistics but there are always some to land, and the killer stat was Stokes becoming only the fifth all-rounder to have scored 5,000 runs and taken 150 wickets in Tests. It’s an elite group, formed of Sobers, Ian Botham, Kapil Dev and Jacques Kallis, and, with the exception of Kallis, all have been crowd pleasers first and foremost. That was the player who appeared before England’s supporters again, and they were overjoyed to witness the revival.
West Indies v England: Second Test
Day three, Friday 2pm
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