Ben Stokes' bizarre knock

Some English journalists were told to cover Stokes' first day of captaincy on day one. That is a fairly common thing that happens, he is a new story, and that is a safe easy colour piece for a writer.

But today was far more interesting because this was a high-pressure situation. It wasn't him moving chess pieces around the field but actually doing his primary skill and what part of his legend had been born on.

He was coming in after a bunch of wickets, but you have to expect that if you bat for England. The ball was moving about, probably more when he entered than when the ball was new. And England needed a lot of runs at this point.

If you looked through Ben Stokes' eyes, you could see why he felt attack was the option. And it made some sense, England needed over 200, had their last two specialist batters at the crease, a tail that looks flammable, and this was still a pitch where people were struggling to score. Also, the ball was now swinging more than earlier in the innings.

Stokes way of attacking was perhaps the weirdest because it wasn't as if he started playing big shots. Instead he started running down the wicket and hinting at aggression. At one stage he danced down the wicket to leave the ball. Another he came down to pad one away. He looked like a computer game cricketer where the user had remembered now to come down the wicket, but not play a shot.

Most of his walking down the wicket was to Colin de Grandhomme, the man who hovers around 75MPH in a similar way his hair hovers on his shoulders. (Side note: did de Grandhomme have the worst day of his career. Runs himself out while waiting to see if he was out to an LBW. He wouldn't have been. Bowls Stokes with a no ball. Then gets injured and hobbles off. We had a team hat-trick today, and CDG had a shit hat-trick. ) We have seen Stokes do this before - Buttler too. They like the pace of the ball and when bowlers are a bit slower they come at them. Based on his angle, Stokes was also trying to take LBW out of the equation by getting outside the line.

There is solid thinking in both of those ideas. If you like pace on, the de Grandhomme wobblers will probably be a pain in the arse. Get outside the line if he's working you over for a cheeky inswinger. But there is simply a better way to do this. Bat a metre out of the crease, and go with one of those fancy off stump guards you hear the kids talking about.

Watching him run down the wicket with his head bobbing around was so bizarre. No one was surprised when he dismissed by de Grandhomme. But it wasn't just that he ran down the wicket, he also tried to flat bat a ball down the ground. That's a bad shot in that situation if you're standing still. He added a degree of difficulty to it.

And as he walked off, he looked furious with himself. I thought that he would learn from it at least when he was reprieved. Bat aggressive again, sure, but in a slightly less dangerous method.

No, I was wrong.

The next over he ran at Tim Southee and sliced over slips. It was way worse. It was like watching a rat still trying to eat that electrified cheese after the fifth zap.

If you compare that to the attacking he did of Ajaz Patel, it was another universe. On the face of it that would look bad as well, two men out, and he was hitting over their head. And was almost bowled by him from one big swipe. But Stokes hit a first class SLA for 34 runs in an over in recent memory. This was a good matchup, a reasonably short boundary, and one of his best shots.

It wasn't like he had to push it. He and Root nullified the swing, and with de Grandhomme's heel injury New Zealand were down a pacer in a long session. This meant that naturally, Boult, Southee and Jamieson trailed off, and when the ball stopped moving, they didn't look as dangerous.

When he was facing a tired look Jamieson had now passed 50. There was a shot he played where he stood in his crease and just timed a push through point to the boundary. That shot was good enough for me to believe England could actually win. Their non-existent top order was gone, they still had stumps, the second new ball and their own tail as a problem. But with Root and Stokes, there was hope, and it's been a time since that word has been associated with England batting.

Less so when Stokes' was running down the wicket to Kyle Jamieson. You know, the dude who looked by far the best bowler in this match, and currently has a pre-World War One average. Why on earth would you want to be closer to him or on the move when he bowls?

And I wonder if it's that for all his batting talent, Stokes still bats in solid zones. He has block the shit out of it, work for singles and go all-in on attacking. A standard batter has more light and shade, they go up and down, use two at once. Stokes seems to decide on one and use it. He clearly wanted to attack Jamieson.

But it wasn't the charge that got him. It was a short ball, possibly bowled because Jamieson thought Stokes would charge him again. Instead Stokes stayed put, but limboed back as the bouncer angled at him, and then suddenly decided he could attack it and tried to ramp it over the slips' heads. Getting a feather behind and looking as angry as when de Grandhomme had bowled him from the no ball.

It was one of the more bizarre Stokes innings you will see. I don't think it says much about his as a captain. Or McCullum's coaching. But it may say something about Stokes' form, or at least his current batting brain.

Stokes has been averaging 26 since the start of 2021. That's a tough run to start your captaincy. As bizarre and lucky as it was, this innings might actually be enough for England to win this crazy Test.

Stokes' captaincy will be overanalysed for signs of genius or errors in moments like this. But the bigger problem seems to be that he is captaining a team with only two functioning Test batters, and one of them is running down the wicket like a lunatic.