An EPL invite and G7 banter
The miraculous chase pulled off by England’s Ben Stokes on Sunday not only levelled the Ashes; it also proved that Test cricket at its best pervades all spheres in the countries that follow cricket’s oldest format.
And Test cricket was at its best with Stokes penning an outlandish, unbeaten 135, 74 of which came after the ninth England wicket fell with England still 73 runs adrift of the 359 they needed to win the third Test at Headingley.
Six weeks before his Headingley epic, Stokes had won England their maiden World Cup at Lord’s, but his Ashes leveller arguably had even more tongues wagging.
It captured the imagination to the extent that India prime minister Narendra Modi broke the news to British premier Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France on Sunday.
Reuters reported that after Modi told Johnson during a meeting, the British prime minister asked for an Ipad to watch the highlights of the Stokes miracle. Yesterday, Johnson met Australian prime minister Scott Morrison on the sidelines of the summit and the Australian had congratulated his British counterpart.
“We’re not taking anything for granted,” Johnson said, proving that even the usually eccentric prime minister played it safe when it came to the Ashes.
Morrison tempered his well-wishes to Johnson by joking: “Two to go, two to go”.
Apart from breaching the corridors of power in the G7, Stokes’s feat also transcended to another sport and the all-rounder was issued an invitation to play as centre half for Newcastle in the English Premier League.
Newcastle United boss Steve Bruce joked that he was willing to play Stokes, a Newcastle supporter, as a centre half after the England all-rounder’s epic century.
Newcastle defeated Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 in the Premier League on the same day for their first win of the season and the 58-year-old said he had spent the final few minutes before kickoff in London watching Stokes’s match-winning knock.
“I don’t know what was more nervous. The last 10 minutes of the cricket or this (match). Ben Stokes can play centre half for us next week that’s for sure,” Bruce said.
“How wonderful it was to watch. [The cricket] was just on. They [Newcastle] had gone for a warm-up and there’s nothing you can do then. I usually sit and read the programme.
“But how could I not watch? The kitman was running around ... saying ‘we need 27, we’ve got to put it on’. It was wonderful entertainment, worth watching. It was better than reading the programme, that’s for sure.”
In the cricket world meanwhile, English and Austrians alike were swooning over Stokes’s feat.
All the English newspapers carried a picture of the all-rounder celebrating his winning runs at a sun-bathed Headingley on their front pages, with The Sun splashing “Go Urn My Son!” and the Daily Telegraph “Howzat!”.
Former England opener Geoffrey Boycott described Sunday as the best cricketing moment he had witnessed in 50 years. Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting was unsure he had seen ‘anything better than that on a Test ground’.
“It was a combination of all sorts of things, craft, skill, versatility and most of all, an ‘over my dead body’ attitude without which you are not a great player,” former England captain Mike Atherton said.
“We can all die happy now -- cricket doesn’t get any better than this,” wrote Sydney Morning Herald columnist Greg Baum, while The Australian’s Gideon Haigh added: “Nobody involved in this Test could feel anything other than honoured to have been part of it.”
The Melbourne Herald Sun said Stokes delivered England an “Ashes miracle”.
“Ben Stokes began his incredible, match-winning knock a modern-day Geoffrey Boycott, and ended it looking like Adam Gilchrist,” it said. “Few Test innings have, or will, match it for guts, glamour and glory.”
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