Ben Stokes has risen to prominence as a destructive cricketer but as he lifted his bat to the dressing room in celebration of his century on the second day at Rajkot, the huge smear of dirt down the front of his shirt and the sweat dripping from his brow told its own story.
The 25-year-old’s capacity to turn a match in a session is what makes him such an exciting talent, with his most jaw-dropping innings to date being the violent 258 in Cape Town in January when, on a true surface that saw the ball come nicely on to the bat, he was able to ignite the after-burners early and torment South Africa’s bowlers.
But here in the dust and dry heat of India, where the key is to put miles into the legs of the opposition and take time out of the game in order to wear the pitch, he played an innings of more graft and craft, registering his fourth Test hundred and his 12th in first-class cricket. Coming in 173 balls, this was needless to say his most patient to date.
Spending just shy of five hours at the crease for his 128, a vigil that saw him cramp up by the end and need rehydration treatment after stumps, Stokes exhibited a growing maturity to his game for the second time in this subcontinental winter after the 85 that set up victory in the first Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong.
None of this is to say the ball did not get its fair share of torment, with 13 fours and two sixes crunched along the way. Indeed earlier in the piece, with first Moeen Ali and then Jonny Bairstow for company, it had looked as if it would be another day when Stokes would wield his bat like a blacksmith’s hammer, helping to pile on 139 runs in the morning session.
But, as the afternoon wore on, he found scoring harder and slowed down considerably, with plenty of watchful defence pockmarked by the pouncing on anything loose or the pinching of smart ones and twos that Graham Thorpe, the one-day coach with whom he worked on the Bangladesh tour, made his stock in trade in this part of the world.
Stokes, it must be said, did ride his luck and at times it felt the most perilous ascent by a New Zealand‑born adventurer in Asia since that of Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953. Chances were offered and duffed on a second day of charitable fielding from India, with their wicketkeeper, Wriddhiman Saha, twice grassing him in the 60s during a burst of swing and variable bounce from Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami with which Stokes struggled.
His other flirtations with danger saw top-edged swipes land between men running in – India’s captain, Virat Kohli, brought out the double chai-pot on more than one occasion – while his movement through the 90s contained some fraught action between the wickets before he finally swiped Ravindra Jadeja to the cover boundary to bring up his hundred.
Yet none of this should detract from an innings of mental fortitude in temperatures touching 36 degrees out in the middle, nor the way he toyed with the spinners overall. Considerable progress has been made here since past experiences in such conditions, chiefly last winter’s series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates, where he averaged 14 from six innings and was frustrated by the ball not coming on to the bat.
Stokes is thus becoming a more multidimensional batsman than some may previously have thought possible and on a personal level he will have been delighted to end a run of three ducks in Test cricket against India that came back in 2014, when the previous regime curiously considered No8 to be the best spot for his talents.
A nod, too, must go to England’s No10, Zafar Ansari, who himself may one day rise up the order if the calmness exhibited during his 32 is anything to go by. Given a frantic display by the man above him, Adil Rashid, that did little to help calm Stokes in the 90s, a small promotion for Ansari may even come in the second innings.
