With Rizwan in the powerplay, a run out is always on the cards, especially in the first 2-3 overs, but Jordan from mid-off couldn’t find the stumps.

Chris Woakes too starts with a wide down the leg side. Ben Stokes unable to quite tame the swing on offer. Many Pakistan fans too spoke of wanting to play India, but later assured Indians that they would beat England and “take revenge for the semi-finals loss.”īlack arm-bands for David English organiser of kid tourneys Many Indian fans didn’t go through the turnstiles into the Melbourne finale at the G on Sunday and instead were seen selling tickets for half the price outside the stadium. For that’s what Stokes has done.Įveryone was wanting to see the India vs Pakistan final – noone more than ticket-buying India fans, and England surely spoilt the party plans. Perhaps he said, we will be stuck in a hole in two pressure must-win games, against Sri Lanka and then in the final. Buttler sat him down for a chat to tell him what his role was. When he came to the World Cup, he hadn’t played a T20 game in 18 months. What about big occasion? Staggering,” Ian Smith as ever with the pithily insightful cries that would stay in the mind for long. The long-on fielder jumped but grasped thin air. Stokes had heaved it on the up and the white ball seemingly hung in the air. The next was a thriller: Stokes backed away, Shadab held his nerve and for a long time, it seemed he had his man. Nasser Hussain started to turn into a Bill Lawry on air. First ball, Stokes backed away to slam it to long-off boundary. Against him was Shadab Khan, a very good leggie.

Nerveless, ambitious, and one who trusts his own game. Going by his own career, we can say he did a Stokes.

With 38 runs needed off 26 balls, Ben Stokes did a Virat Kohli: two successive boundaries under immense pressure. We know the backstory: the pub fight that threatened his career, the death of his father, the mental-health struggle, the Test captaincy recharge with Brendon McCullum, the ODI world cup star, and now the T20 world cup star. Even in that last over that England lost in Kolkata, it was him with the bowling but where it could have scarred a lesser mortal, he has wiped it off like only he can. And now, in another World Cup, he has caught hold of the big moment and pocketed it with steel and ambition. And then that gobsmacking smack off Pat Cummins. The Ashes when he couldn’t even see his partner Jack Leach bat, hunched as he was at the non-striker covering his eyes. Even when he was sprawled on the ground, the ball ricocheting off his bat, became the image. Perhaps, no other contemporary cricketer seizes big moments like him. As soon as he hit, Ben Stokes started to backpedal, roar, and kept roaring till first Livingstone hugged him.

Cricket defend the wicket