Rough diamond Ben Stokes is now a flawless all-rounder

Ben Stokes is always looking for an opportunity to score. He still has that competitive desire, but he has married it to a greater match awareness.

Ben Stokes celebrates hitting the winning runs at Headingley in 2019

Rough diamond. That was the phrase Paul Collingwood used to describe this young lad they had at Durham. “He’s going to be a world-beater,” Colly, who wasn’t normally prone to hyperbole, said.

This would have been about 2012 or 2013, though I don’t think it was until the Ashes tour of 2013-14 that I got a chance to check out the goods. By that point, Ben Stokes’s main claim to fame was being sent home from a Lions tour to Australia in February 2013 for disciplinary reasons. So Colly was right on the rough part, but what about the diamond?

Whenever a new player came into the squad, I looked for differences in their technique, demeanour and temperament that singled them out from the other youngsters. I watched Stokes in the nets during the early stages of that tour and it was the way he faced the pace bowlers that caught my eye.

Whereas most batsmen would have understandably hung back on the crease against the quicks, he showed no such reticence. If there was the slightest opportunity to get forward to drive, punch or hit over the top, he was taking it.

It was like the first time I saw Jos Buttler in a T20 match at Taunton. It wasn’t time — the quality that they say all the batting greats possess; it wasn’t power — that other commodity so prized in the modern game. Both possessed those attributes, but it was more an instinct and feel that you can’t coach.

Stokes showed he could do it out in the middle in only his second Test. That series was not ideal for an England debut. He came in for the Adelaide Test after we had been humbled at the Gabba and Jonathan Trott had flown home with a stress-related illness. Mitchell Johnson was in the form of his life and another drubbing followed.

By the time of the third Test, the rest of the Aussies were charging through the door that Johnson had knocked down. In the second innings, Ben came in with England 121 for four and chasing 504. Given the match situation, the quality of the bowling attack and the fact that there was a massive crack down the middle of the pitch (check out Ryan Harris dismissing me for a golden duck on YouTube), to score 120 was a magnificent achievement. The way he climbed into anything that was short or full from their quicks reminded me of the way Ricky Ponting had taken apart Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff on his way to 196 seven years earlier in Brisbane.

Two Tests later, Stokes had his first Test five-for at Sydney, where he took six for 99. It was clear that he had something but he was a long way from the finished article as a bowler, which was not surprising given he is a batsman first and it takes longer to learn your trade with the ball at Test level.

Nineteen months later, he delivered his best spell under my captaincy. Everyone rightly remembers Stuart Broad’s eight for 15 in the first innings of the 2015 Ashes Test at Trent Bridge. Few will recall Ben’s impact in Australia’s second innings.

He took the ball with the score 71 for no wicket after 15 overs and bowled 10 straight overs, taking three for 22 and snuffing out any faint hopes of a fightback. He was getting the ball to move both ways, orthodox and reverse swing, at 135kph and more, to finish with figures of six for 36.

This is the thing about Ben as a bowler: he likes long spells, he gets better the more he bowls. I think back to the 10 overs he bowled in the heat in the Colombo Test in November 2018, which yielded three wickets and put his side in control; to the 15 overs he sent down at the end of the second day at Headingley in 2019 to stop Australia getting out of reach when England had been bowled out for 67 (he bowled 24.2 overs in that innings, finishing with three wickets); and to the spell he produced to wrap up the Cape Town Test in January 2020 (he took the last three wickets when it looked like the home side might hold out for the draw).

He will almost certainly play as the fourth seamer in this series but there will come a point when England will need him to produce similar spells, either in defensive or offensive situations, and you can bet your Aussie dollar that he will relish the opportunity. He does not shirk work. I remember when he came back just after his first finger operation and it was obvious he wasn’t comfortable trying to make the ball swing with a new contortion of his fingers, but he ran in without complaint and with little difference in results.

I said that he is a batsman first and, therefore, I expect him to come in at No.5. He is a much better batsman now than he was eight years ago, the previous time he played in Australia. That Ben Stokes was always looking for an opportunity to score, to assert himself over the bowler and to put pressure back on the opposition. He still has that competitive desire but he has married it to a greater match awareness. There is a time to attack and a time to defend and that’s why I maintain that his knock at Headingley remains the greatest I have ever seen by an England player because it combined both to perfection.

We know about the boundaries that got his team over the line on the fourth day. As explosive as that hitting was, it was also perfectly calibrated. Before then, however, coming in halfway through the evening session on day three, with England 141 for three requiring another 218, he gave a masterclass in conventional discipline.

He knew it was imperative to his team’s chances that he was there at the end of play and he was the embodiment of watchfulness. There will be moments on this tour when his solid defence will again be needed.

He should enjoy batting and bowling in Australia because the speed and bounce of the pitches will suit him on both fronts. If I were in the Aussie camp plotting his downfall, I am not sure I would have any great insight because he has no obvious weakness. Like any left-hander, he is liable to nicking off so their fast bowlers must be on and around his off stump. Nathan Lyon might be brought on to test him early on because he is a brilliant bowler against left-handers.

The big unknown is how match-ready physically and mentally he is after so long out. I don’t have the inside track on the circumstances that forced him to take indefinite leave in the summer. But I do know how the good times (the attention that followed his matchwinning performances in the World Cup final and Headingley) as much as the bad times (bubble life, his father passing away, the finger injury) can catch up with you and be as mentally draining.

I’d be more worried if I were Australia, however. Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Lyon, who were flayed to all corners of Leeds on that glorious Sunday afternoon in August 2019, will feature in this series and the memory of that day won’t have been wiped from their consciousness.

The Sunday Times