Code Red as Ben Stokes eyes off a rare Ashes series win
Let’s not be too blindingly patriotic about the Ashes. We can hope Australia wins the 10.5cm terracotta urn – something so small means so much! – while carrying measureless admiration and respect for the England captain. He’s a redhead, and everyone loves a redhead, for the fire in their souls, and their impatience, and their combativeness, and their rugged decency, but I’m hesitating here because the last time I called an athlete a ranga, I received a truckload of mail about racism.
Which was a shock. Because from primary school, I’d thought of ‘ranga’ as a gushing compliment. When I was belted by red-headed footy players in juniors, I marvelled at their in-built fight. Racism? I was in awe. I wish I could call BA Stokes a ranga and have it viewed a compliment. For being someone to be reckoned with. Someone to be feared in competition. Someone dangerous. Someone good. Who just to happens to have the magic of red hair and freckles. Hand on heart, I’d love to be a ranga.
Perth on Friday – this is Test cricket but not as we know it. Or not as we’ve seen on these shores. England was annihilated 4-0 in Australia in 2021/22 like timid, talentless visitors destined to lose because they didn’t go hogwild for a win. Baz was appointed coach in the aftermath, and BA Stokes became captain, and together they created a supernova way of playing ball. I reckon BA Stokes deserves equal naming rights. Baz’s grand plan would’ve been pointless without a big-hitting, snarling, aggressive, ruthless, predatory, hell-for-leather skipper who was playing Bazball before Bazball even existed.
Baz ain’t on the field. Ben is. BenBall doesn’t sound as jazzy. Stokesball isn’t really snazzy. Since Australia won on a greentop at London’s Kennington Oval in 1882, and the death of English cricket was deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances, and the bails were burned, and placed in a 10.5cm terracotta urn – so small! – no team from Mother England has played as freely as this. Are we sure Oscar Wilde didn’t invent it?
It’s like a patient, slow-moving jazz musician becoming a rock god. You bat for quick runs. Bowl for wickets. Go big or go home to Heathrow. Draws are the enemy. It’s bold and brave and can go horribly pear-shaped but the ambition is intoxicating. Win big, lose big, death or glory, and may there be nothing in between. That’s Baz&BenBall.
Parading the trophy in Perth on Thursday, he kept staring, shark-like, at Australia captain Steve Smith. He’s ready to rumble. Rangas always are. Everything’s a code red.
“Coming to Australia, playing against Australia, they’re a seriously good team,” he says. “Everyone, including myself, knows the record of England over the history of Ashes in Australia isn’t the best. But you know, we’ve got an opportunity here over the next two-and-a-half months to write our own history. We’ve obviously come here with a goal and that goal is to get on that plane mid-January, returning to England being Ashes winners. We know it’s going to be very, very tough. It’s going to be hard. Beating Australia is not an easy thing.”
Only five England captains have succeeded in Australia since World War II: Len Hutton (1954/55) when Frank ‘Typhoon’ Tyson huffed and puffed and blew everyone away; Ray Illingworth (1970/71) when John Snow was unplayable and Geoffrey Boycott averaged 93.85; Mike Brearley (1978/79) when Australia was decimated by World Series Cricket; Mike Gatting (1986/87) when Elton John joined the dressing-room celebrations; and Andrew Strauss (2010/11) when England did its dorky sprinkler celebration at the SCG. Which means Big Red, BA Stokes, will become one of his nation’s greatest skippers if he wins the little – so little! – urn.
BA Stokes’ only weakness can be the emotion running through his veins. “He has got vulnerabilities, Stokes,” Strauss tells Sky Sports in the UK. “We know he’s an emotional guy. And I think the Australians, as a nation, they’re going to really try and get under his skin over the course of these five Test matches. As a captain, you need to be able to suck that up and almost show that you’re unaffected.”
Strauss adds: “I think Stokes is going to find that difficult to do, but what he can do, and what he’s done very well in the past, is answer with his performances on the pitch. Those incredible, inspired performances, some of England’s greatest performances of all time, with bat and ball. He can do that, but it’s going to be very draining for him, mentally. If England loses a Test match or two early, that’s going to be a real challenge for him.”
Here’s to BA Stokes. The piercing eyes, the pointed, triangular face, the sharp snout and beautiful hint of menace. The hundred freckles from his thousand hours in the sun. The Ashes, right now, are a blank page. It’s like the start of a Trent Dalton novel. You have no idea where the plot will take you, only that it will be good. BA Stokes will be in the thick of the next five Tests. Rangas rule.
“I think he’s phenomenal, Stokesy,” Strauss says. “He’s pushed English Test cricket forward quite a substantial way. I love his approach. I love how clear he is in his thinking. And I love the fact he really doesn’t care what any of us think.”
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Benjamin Andrew Stokes is a man of remarkable physical appearance. You’re reminded of a great white shark. The piercing eyes, the pointed, triangular face, the sharp snout and the beautiful, enchanting, spine-chilling hint of menace. A hundred embellishing freckles and wrinkles remind you that he’s spent a thousand hours in the sun.