In every match there are the moments that matter just that much more, when all the idle chatter stops, and some spectators fall silent while the rest start to sing and shout that bit louder still. And everybody there knows, just knows, that somehow, whatever happens now, the game is about to shift and twist one way or the other.
That moment came at a quarter to twelve, 45 minutes in to the day’s play. Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya held off the opening blows from Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad and now they were starting their counterattack. England’s lead fell with vertiginous speed and all of a sudden their position felt queasily precarious again.
Joe Root allowed Anderson and Broad one over too many. An understandable mistake, especially from a younger captain leading two old pros such as those. But a costly one. The adrenaline that flooded through England when Anderson dismissed Dinesh Karthik in the first over was exhausted and Pandya, who had played such a calm hand, was just feeling his start to flow. He whipped three runs out past Sam Curran at midwicket. Then Kohli hopped on to his toes and clipped four more through fine-leg. That took him to his fifty. He felt good now and when Anderson appealed for an lbw the next ball, Kohli grinned back at him, sure and secure.
Broad whistled his first ball up full. Pandya hit it back past him faster. So Broad tried the inswinger. Pandya picked it and hit it through midwicket. India had scored 15 runs in eight balls, their target was cut to 52 and England’s grip was starting to slip.
The India fans were doing all the chanting now, a drumbeat cry of “Koh-li! Koh-li! Koh-li!” So long as he was in, India would win. Root realised that he had to make a change, before the game got right away from him. So he threw the ball to Ben Stokes. “Stokesy’s just got that knack, hasn’t he?” Root said. “He loves the big moments.”
It was Stokes who settled the Lord’s Test against New Zealand in 2015, when he had Kane Williamson caught behind and then bowled Brendon McCullum with his next ball; Stokes who settled the Chittagong Test against Bangladesh in 2016, when he dismissed the last two tail-enders when there were 22 needed; Stokes who settled the Oval Test against South Africa last year, when he got Quentin de Kock and Faf du Plessis in one over. And it was Stokes who seized the match here, finally swayed it England’s way after three days in which it had blown to-and-fro.
Stokes’s first ball was short and slanted in towards Kohli’s chest. He rode it down to leg. His second was straighter, well wide of off stump and Kohli came across to steer it down to the off. The third was the sucker ball, full and fast, seven miles per hour quicker than the first of the spell. Kohli came across to the off-side again, too far, and tried to flick the ball away square. He missed. It hit his pad flush in front of leg stump. Stokes swivelled on his heels and screamed, both arms aloft, and then, when Aleem Dar raised his finger, fell down to his knees in celebration.
Two balls later, he had Mohammed Shami caught behind. In all the excitement, everyone seemed almost to forget that England still had to win the match. It was Stokes who finished it by taking the last wicket, after a fine cameo turn from Adil Rashid.
That kneeling pose of Stokes looked pretty familiar. It was similar to the one Andrew Flintoff threw when he bowled Peter Siddle at Lord’s in the second Ashes Test in 2009, his fifth wicket in his final Test at the ground. There was just a hint of the deeper emotions Stokes was feeling here, too.
He is bound to miss England’s next Test because of his court case, which starts in Bristol on Monday. The charges have been hanging over him for six months now but it was only when this match, his last bit of cricket before court, was all over that the reality of the situation really seemed to sink in for him and everyone watching.
Stokes bowled four overs on Saturday but he looked, and sounded, as if he had never been so exhausted. He could hardly string his words together. He tried to explain the delivery to Kohli, but could not, quite. All he really knew was that Kohli “had missed one for a change”. Stokes had spent every last part of himself for the sake of the team. “It’s just great to be a part of this group,” he said. The realisation came again, right then, that Stokes will not be part of it this coming week.
Root tried to reassure him. “He’s so dedicated to this team,” he said. “Whatever happens, he’s always going to be a part of it.”
But the truth is that right now Stokes does not know when he will next play for England.
