ALASTAIR COOK claimed after the ODI series that the improvement England’s one-day team could make was “quite scary”. When Ben Stokes, the Durham allrounder, was blazing away in the Royal London Cup semi-final against Nottinghamshire yesterday you could see what he meant.
A career-best 164 off 113 balls contained hitting of brutal power and adhered to the time-honoured English strategy of holding back until the later stages before cutting loose.
Nor was that all: further encouragement for England came later from James Taylor, who vainly tried to keep Nottinghamshire’s challenge alive with an inventive 114 off 112 balls that enhanced his reputation as a one-day player of exciting potential. It was his fourth hundred in six short-form innings.
Unlike Stokes, Taylor will join England for today’s Twenty20 against India at Edgbaston, his first international call-up for 12 months.
Going in at No 5 in the 16th over, Stokes played a measured game until the 35-over mark but was still scoring at better than a run a ball. From that point on it was carnage whoever was bowling, as Stokes, with useful support from Paul Collingwood and John Hastings, plundered 79 from 36 balls before holing out at long on.
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Four overs from Jake Ball cost 60 while four from Luke Fletcher, a man with the build of a nightclub bouncer and the feet of a local bobby, went for 44.
During this phase Durham almost doubled their score, moving from 179 for three to 353 for eight in 90 balls. It was too much for Notts, who without Alex Hales never seriously threatened Durham as they moved smoothly towards a final meeting with Warwickshire at Lord’s on September 20.
Stokes is producing a strong finish to a difficult summer which saw him make a delayed entrance following a self-inflicted hand injury, axed from the Test team after three ducks in three innings and dropped from the ODI side following a sequence of 43 runs in 12 innings for England across all formats.
He returned to the one-day team on Friday to contribute 33 runs and three wickets towards England’s consolation win in Leeds. Yesterday’s performance suggests that Peter Moores has erred in not having him in his Twenty20 squad, although it was picked after the Durham allrounder had done little in the first two ODIs. Tim Bresnan’s withdrawal on Friday created the chance to summon him as a replacement but the selectors decided not to take it.
In all, Stokes hit 18 fours and six sixes, although he was fortunate to be dropped on 12 by Chris Read standing up to Steven Mullaney. Stokes’s partnership with Phil Mustard was worth 16 at that point; they went on to add 135 off 141 balls before Mustard ran himself out for 89 off 111.
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Notts will rue squandering favourable early bowling conditions, but their challenge now is to pick themselves up for Tuesday’s championship showdown with Yorkshire.