How Ben Stokes’ Elvis speech inspired England cricket’s Bazball winning streak

His Elvis-inspired speech was the catalyst for England’s Bazball winning streak … but ahead of Friday’s first Ashes Test, captain Ben Stokes isn’t ‘wiggling’ like the King.

England captain Ben Stokes (right) is seen at training with fast bowler Mark Wood ahead of the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston. Picture: Getty Images

England captain Ben Stokes has vowed his side will continue to play like “rock stars” but the all-rounder is still moving more like an Elvis in decline as opposed to the King in his prime.

Stokes, who is hobbled by injury, was watching the Elvis movie made by Australia’s Baz Luhrmann before last year’s series against India and decided he would use it to inspire his side.

He rallied the troops with a speech invoking The King and a moment in the movie where Elvis wiggles his pinky finger after being told by police he would be jailed if he wiggled his hips.

“There was this one part of the movie where I was like “oh my god this is stuff I am literally trying to do,” Stokes told Isa Guha on BBC’s Test match special this week.

“I was watching it and going somehow I’ve got to try to get this movie part into the team talk and it made complete sense in my head and I said ‘all right I am going with it tomorrow’.

“Team talks might look like we’re being deadly serious but the one before India I was actually talking about Elvis Presley.”

Joe Root, who says he feels very un-rock star-like, celebrated his century soon after with the pinky gesture toward the dressing room and it became a thing among teammates.

The side has been on a winning streak ever since.

Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum insist cricket must be fun.

The motivational speech echoes a famous moment in India in which former all-rounder and captain Andrew Flintoff fired inspired his side with a rousing version of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire song during the 2006 Mumbai Test.

“We went in the dressing-room, had our lunch then played a bit of Johnny Cash, Ring Of Fire,” Flintoff said at the time. “It got the lads going and we came out afterwards with a spring in our step.”

Stokes has vowed to come at the Australians hard and fast, refusing to trim England’s sail, but the sight of the all rounder’s heavily-strapped left leg poses questions around his fitness for the Ashes.

The English captain, who has led the ‘Bazball’ revolution, bowled a limited number deliveries at three-quarter pace in a hit-out at Edgbaston ahead of Friday’s first Test.

Preparation done.

It’s time to do whatever it takes.

🎙Narrated by @[e-mail]/L0S1ozivvq

— Ben Stokes (@benstokes38) June 12, 2023

Stokes did not bowl in England’s Test match against Ireland at the start of the month and was seen to grimace after landing awkwardly in that match.

He bowled just one over in the IPL, despite receiving a cortisone injection before the tournament, and he bowled nine in February’s two Test series.

If anybody can bowl through the pain barrier it is the notoriously tough Kiwi-born English skipper, who has continually reassured observers that he will be fit for the Ashes.

It is highly unlikely, however, that Stokes can put in the sort of effort that kept England in the 2019 Headingley Test which he later won with his batting.

With the game slipping away he bowled an essentially unbroken 24.2-over spell, the longest in Test cricket by a seamer and one that included the critical wicket of Matthew Wade.

Tim Paine revealed later that the Australians were sitting in the dressing rooms saying among themselves that surely he could not go on, but on and on and on he did until he made the breakthrough.

Stokes told BBC Test Match Special that England would not be changing the attacking style of play that has seen it have so much success in the past 12 months.

“Nothing is going to change because we’ve had unbelievable success with it,” Stokes said.

“If we were to change anything from the last 12 months because we find ourselves in an Ashes series then anything from the last 12 months will have been completely pointless.

“Even before getting together as a Test team for the first time with me as captain, there was one simple thing I said I had to be doing and that was being completely true to myself.

“I had to stay true to how I’ve gone about things as a player, and do them as a captain. I had 85 or 86 games before I got made captain, and the guys that I’ve played with knew me as a person and a player.

“So if I became captain and started doing things completely differently to what they knew me for, it would raise a few eyebrows.”