His world, we’re living in it…

“It is Ben Stokes’ world, and we’re just living in it,” mused Rob Key midway through the final afternoon at Emirates Old Trafford. “He’s just playing a different game to everyone else.”

England’s cricketer of 2019 is in danger of retaining that unofficial badge of honour a year on. If Stokes’ summer was his coming-of-age, then everything since has been about solidifying his case as something even greater – a generational athlete.

In a year desperately short on cricket, he has somehow found the time to drag his country to victory in Cape Town, record a century at Port Elizabeth, captain England for the first time at the Ageas Bowl and then dominate this Test with the bat – performing the roles seemingly of two completely different cricketers in the process.

Mammoth

His 176 in the first innings was, for the most part, an act of stoicism – a mammoth contribution in association with Dom Sibley: in effect, the hard yards for all that followed.

At the end of the second day’s play, he admitted cheerily: “I was more buzzing to face 300 balls than when I got my century. I never thought I could face 300 balls in an innings.”

It was a side to Stokes we have seen before – take the first half of his Headingley heroics, for example, but still not the side with which we have come to associate him.

Rather, that version was wrapped up in the treat he served on Monday morning – a cocktail of abandon both reckless and selfless. The first delivery of the day was scythed out to the fielder on the cover boundary, causing chortles in the commentary box. In the same over off Kemar Roach, the unsuspecting victim of his barrage, Stokes launched him over long-off for six.

Effort

It was the start of a mini-session that provided 92 runs in 11 overs. By the time Joe Root called time on his antics, Stokes had added 78 – 31 more than his best T20I effort. It meant that he ended his game with the bat 254 for 1, having faced 356 balls in his first innings and just 57 the second time around.

It was fitting perhaps that he should produce a display like this in the anniversary week of last summer’s World Cup final – all-action, everywhere, indomitable. He was hardly ever off the field at any point – barring a ten-minute spell of indigestion on the fourth evening.

When Jermaine Blackwood punched him through mid-off in the final over before tea, it was Stokes – the bowler – who chased it all the way to the boundary. And only a matter of moments later, it was Stokes – with England in dire need of a breakthrough – forcing the same batsman to glove to Jos Buttler.

As Key said, this is Stokes’ world. No longer a player of fits and spurts, this is the norm. The man for everywhere and every day.

A point well made

It feels a long time ago now that Stuart Broad was left out at the Ageas Bowl, and even longer still since that decision even began to make sense. With England struggling in his absence, he admitted as much himself during an interview with Sky Sports.

“To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement,” he told Ian Ward. “You get disappointed if you drop your phone and break your screen.

“I’ve been frustrated, angry and gutted – because it’s quite a hard decision to understand. I’ve probably bowled the best I’ve ever bowled in the last couple of years. I felt like it was my shirt having been in the team through the Ashes and going to South Africa and winning there.”

Faced with the pressure of his own words, Broad backed it all up. Perhaps, that was the idea all along – he had spoken in the build-up to the series about how he had consulted a psychologist to understand how might recreate the buzz of the crowd upon which he has so often thrived in the past. Maybe this was it – his own way of getting himself up for it.

England will argue this was all part of the plan – a fresh Broad in Manchester ready to go, targeting the stumps and the weaknesses of a West Indian batting line-up on a high after a win in Southampton.

I’ve probably bowled the best I’ve ever bowled in the last couple of years.

Stuart Broad

But Broad – on the evidence of the last 12 months – is an undroppable force. Of his 93 Test wickets since 2018, 43 have been either lbw or bowled. He is bowling quicker than for some time; he remains as potent as ever. When England took the second new ball on the fourth evening, that was his moment. And moment grasped.

A smiling assassin, Federer’s headband and the self-parody of his much-vaunted celebrappeal, this may well be Stokes’ Test, but it has also been Broad’s: a reminder – if ever one was needed – that 491 wickets later, he remains a unique weapon in England’s armoury.

England’s underappreciated centurion

It takes a decent cricketer to reach 100 Test wickets. It takes a pretty fine player to match that landmark with 1,000 Test runs as well. And when Woakes removed Shane Dowrich to complete the wicketkeeper’s pair, he joined a fairly exclusive club.

It took Andrew Flintoff and Ben Stokes 43 games each, Jason Holder 39 and Sir Garfield Sobers 48.

Better

Is Woakes better than Sobers? Well, no. But does he deserve far more acclaim than he ordinarily receives? Undoubtedly so.

Stokes, Sibley and Broad will certainly take much of the acclaim for a fine England performance, but Woakes – as so often – was tremendous.

His biggest problem might be one of his greatest traits: dependability. The Warwickshire allrounder is far more than a Reliant Robin, however. His bowling average in England is superior to that of both Broad and James Anderson; it will be two years ago next month since he made a fine Test hundred against India at Lord’s.

Here, his control was immaculate; his dismissal of Kraigg Brathwaite – the one England were desperate for, according to Broad – was the consequence of a glorious set-up, moving him across his crease before nipping one back to deliver the fatal blow.

Flown under the radar

Ahead of the day’s play, he spoke to Nasser Hussain. In dismissing Shannon Gabriel on the fourth evening, Woakes had taken his 500th first-class wicket. Hussain congratulated him, asking as well whether he felt like he had flown under the radar through his Test career.

His response was typical of Woakes – an acknowledgement of the quality of those around him. Nothing more. An answer to sum him up: just a high-class operator.

The Voice’s coverage of the England-West Indies Test series comes in collaboration with The Cricketer – the world’s No.1 cricket magazine. Click here to visit their website