Ben Stokes hailed a whirlwind five-wicket, series-clinching victory over New Zealand as his ‘greatest win’ so far as an England cricketer.
His 75 not out on a record-breaking final day chase of 299-5 had a big hand in the win, but it was Jonny Bairstow ’s 136 from 92 balls, the second fastest English ton of all time, that stole the show and battered the Kiwis into submission. And at the end of a full five days with his team conceding 553 and then still coming out on top, thanks to their positive mantra, the skipper was on cloud nine with what had been achieved.
“That blows away Headingley, it blows away Lord's and the World Cup final,” said Stokes. “Was it my greatest win? Yep.
“Just emotionally and the enjoyment of every minute I had on that field, it was incredible. It was just amazing, the whole vibe this week has been awesome. And then to come out and perform the way that we did today.
“I just can't quite wrap my head around how we've chased 299 with 20 overs left on day five of the Test match when we had to bowl 15 overs this morning. That's never gonna happen again. But if it does, it is probably us who are going to do it.
“When Jonny gets those ‘Jonny eyes’ there is no stopping him and he was phenomenal. With this group of players I have absolutely no idea what the limit is. The sky's the limit but we could probably go further than that.”
Despite having a 1-0 lead with two games to play Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum refused to even entertain the idea of a draw and that made things even clearer for the players.
“The message was to just run into the fear of what the game was rather than standstill or back away from it,” Stokes added. “I'll say it quite simply, we were either winning this game or losing it.”
Bairstow’s performance earned him the man-of-the-match gong as one of five centurions in the game, which is why a whopping 1675 runs were scored, the second most runs ever in a Test match in England. And with eight others to choose from, he rated this one as his finest.
“That was my number one innings for England, it has to be,” he said. “I’m hugely proud of the way I went about it and the bravery that we all have played with in that dressing room.”
