The ‘paint-peeling’ Ben Stokes spray that had to happen
This Ashes has felt like Ben Stokes v the world. You’d be brave to bet against him, but it’s something former England Test star Steve Harmison doesn’t want to see from the captain.
No matter what fate awaits England beyond this hugely challenging Ashes tour Ben Stokes must remain Test captain - but I am very worried about him.
Or, should I say, for him.
My big worry is that he tries to do what Andrew Flintoff tried to do on the rugged 2006-07 of Australia when he thought “right, if you lot are not in it with me I will go and do it by myself.’’
The strain of doing that put paid to Freddy’s body. I don’t want to see that happen to Stokes.
I worry about Ben all the time. I have known him since he was 16. We both played for Durham.
I can still recall Durham cricket director Geoff Cook saying he had found an “unbelievable’’ 16-year-old who would soon break into a Durham team who won the county championship with several rounds to spare.
We all burst out laughing because we had just won two titles in a row. There was no room. It simply couldn’t happen - but it did. And off he went.
Stokes is one of the nicest human beings I have ever met in cricket.
For his sake, I hope we never see a repeat of his press conference after the Gabba Test where he said there was no place for weak men in his dressing room.
I do not want to see an England team which has Stokes in it but not as captain.
But it worries me that he is thinking “ I am getting let down by certain individuals I have gone to war with ... possibly they are not in the battle with me.’’
Stokes will never admit this in public but when the doors are closed, the lights are off and he is lying in bed he would think “I’ve been let down.’’
His “weak men’’ admission was the first time in three and a half years I have heard Stokes say something against his team and the first time Stokes and coach Brendan McCullum have not been aligned in their post-match messaging.
I wonder - and I’m only speculating here - whether it was the first time in three and half years Ben has gone into the dressing room and torn paint strips off the wall by being brutally forthright to some individuals and the team as a collective.
This is the first time since Stokes became captain that he has done anything other than wrap a parental arm around the group. He was right to do that. How these individuals who got a kick up the backside react could make or break the Adelaide Test.
When McCullum said after the Test he felt his team had over-trained I felt he was trying to take the scrutiny off his side.
The worry for me was that if England felt they had over trained before the second Test by training for five days out of 12 what on earth did they do before the first Test?
I hate having a go at the England team because I know how hard they work and what good people they are.
And, for all their stumbles this your, they have given English cricket fans hope. Ninety per cent of what England do is box office. They lose games on the other 10%.
The comparisons between this tour and 2006-07 are vivid.
The relationship between coach Duncan Fletcher and Freddy went south halfway through the 2006-07 tour and Freddy was left on his own and decided to take everything on himself and push his body to the absolute limit.
Freddy’s troops had not deserted but some (my hands in the air) were not playing well. I don’t think Stokes would feel his team have deserted him but that one or two are not pulling in the same direction.
Suddenly you are not just fighting against Australia but putting out fires in your own room. It’s exhausting.
Look, Stokes has to bear some responsibility. For a management group they are all in it together. I won’t defend him on that.
Four days at Noosa will do them the world again. It will re-energise them and get them ready for a game on a surface I think will suit them.
I think England can make a decent account of themselves in Adelaide.
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Originally published as The ‘paint-peeling’ Ben Stokes spray that had to happen
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