England vs South Africa: Ben – Stokes and Foakes – bat England into vast superiority against Proteas

Part of what makes Ben Stokes such a remarkable talent is his ability to grasp a situation, often just as things are looking a little hopeless for his side, and seemingly bend it to his own will. From the latter stages of the World Cup and that innings at Headingley to practically any time England are in the dirt and in desperate need of a wicket, Stokes so often has that special knack of delivering just at the right time.

So it proved once again on Day Two at Old Trafford, England’s skipper notching the 12th Test century of his career and ensuring there would be no wobble from his side as they batted themselves into a position of vast superiority in the match.

Stokes entered the fray inside the first six overs of the day, England four wickets down and still trailing by 17, a more perilous position than you might first assume – given the relative length of England’s tail – after 13 wickets on Day One, the Test was continuing to move at pace.

Anrich Nortje was bowling ferociously, he had seen off Jonny Bairstow to bring in Stokes and removed Zak Crawley in his next over – 90mph plus bowling, swinging through the air and seaming off the pitch – this was cricket with the difficulty turned up to expert level.

Two brilliant centuries to help us to a strong first innings total 🙌

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 #ENGvSA 🇿🇦 pic.twitter.com/nV4vmymjOS

— England Cricket (@englandcricket) August 26, 2022

But this was the day Amazon released a feature-length documentary about Stokes and with his aforementioned ability to grab a moment, realistically it was only ever going to have one leading man – although Ben Foakes did manage to make a star turn of his own in an exemplary best supporting role.

Since taking over the Test captaincy earlier in the summer, Stokes with the bat has been something of a curious beast. He has treated every innings not as an opportunity to improve his personal statistics but as a chance to show his teammates the sort of freedom he wants them to play with – the first berserker through the breach, the corpse of El Cid strapped to a horse, Stokes has been ideology first, results second with the bat, a living embodiment of the new style he wants his side to adopt.

As policies go, with regard to inspiring and shaping the fortunes of his side it has been a great success – the four consecutive victories England rattled off earlier in the summer were forged in the very image of Stokes – from a personal success point of view it has unsurprisingly been less successful, the inevitable sacrifice of one for the other.

Here though England needed not inspiration but action, so that is what Stokes delivered. If Stokes’ innings this summer have been defined by outlandish strokeplay and a general lack of care for the sanctity of his own wicket, here the situation was largely reversed.

Naturally, there was the odd Stokesian flourish – see Simon Harmer’s first ball to him immediately dumped over the boundary for six – but for the most part this was a lesser seen side of his batting, just nine boundaries in total, the careful application and accumulation that the situation required, the early part of his Headingley innings rather than its explosive crescendo.

Together with Foakes, he batted South Africa into submission, by the time he departed, to about the only really loose shot he played all day, England were 169 runs ahead – they would eventually declare with a lead of 264, yet another day shaped indelibly by Benjamin Andrew Stokes.

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