Ben Stokes: the sports star we’d all secretly love to be
England’s World Cup and Ashes icon is a hero and anti-hero rolled into one
Ben Stokes has been swamped with superlatives following his extraordinary match-winning innings at Headingley on Sunday, but perhaps none will mean as much as the words of Ian Botham.
Describing England’s hero as “the special one” on Sky Sports, Botham said of Stokes’s unbeaten 135 against Australia in the third Ashes Test: “It takes a remarkable man to do that... when other players see him, they think there is something special about him. He is the ‘special one’.”
Stokes is a sell-out
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Thanks to Stokes the Ashes series is alive and kicking going into next week’s fourth Test at Old Trafford, with the scores level at one apiece.
That fact alone means the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) will benefit from Stokes’s brilliance, with the public falling over themselves to buy tickets for the Manchester Test and the fifth Test at The Oval.
But Botham believes Stokes will be putting bums on seats for many more years. “He is very valuable to cricket, not just England,” he said of the 28-year-old all-rounder. “He will sell the game worldwide. He should enjoy every moment. It was a really remarkable performance.”
Coupled with his heroics last month in the final of the Cricket World Cup, this has been Stokes’s year and whether or not England regain the Ashes he’s a shoo-in for BBC Sports Personality of the Year. And that’s the key to explain the popularity of Stokes - his personality.
His own man
In an era of suffocating conformity, when actors, singers, celebs and sports stars are scared of saying or doing anything that might be construed as controversial, Stokes is the antidote to the political correctness.
He spurns the healthy eating of his generation, preferring chocolate and “knock-off Nando’s” as his fuel. He also revealed that after the Test in Leeds he and some of his team-mates went to a McDonald’s for a slap-up drive-thru meal.
As well as his eating habits Stokes is similarly irreverent with words.
Minutes after single-handedly seeing off the Aussies on Sunday, Stokes told the BBC’s Jonathan Agnew in a live interview that the man who partnered him in his 76-run last-wicket stand, Jack Leach, had “serious bollocks”.
He followed that up with a tweet: “I fucking [don’t care if I get fined] love Test Match Cricket and I love England cricket.”
Lovable rogue
The love is reciprocated. For Stokes is a flawed genius, a lovable rogue, and English sports fans have always had a soft spot for this genre.
From James Hunt and Botham to Paul Gascoigne and Freddie Flintoff, the English prefer their sporting idols to come with imperfections.
In contrast, the clean-cut stars like Jonny Wilkinson, Alistair Cook and Harry Kane are admired and respected, but never idolised.
Walk on the wild side
Stokes’s wild side is well known. Two years ago he was caught on film brawling in a Bristol street a few hours after smashing 73 to help England beat the West Indies in a one-day international match.
He was stood down from the Ashes tour to Australia that winter and appeared in court the following March on a charge of affray. He admitted to having had “at least ten drinks” but was found not guilty after it emerged he had acted in self-defence after defending two gay men who were being verbally abused.
Stokes has always refused to play the media’s game, toeing their conformist line at the expense of his individuality.
The apology he issued after the Bristol brawl was far from the grovelling one some newspapers had demanded, more a brief expression of contrition.
Nothing to prove
In an interview this year he was indignant at the idea that he should rinse his personality to conform to the puritanical zeitgeist.
“I’m not going to suddenly be an angel, because that’s not me,” he told the London Evening Standard. “I only have to prove things to myself. I’m not looking to please anyone… as long as England win, I don’t really care about trying to prove a point to people.”
The public respond well to such declarations of defiance. As they do to the fact Stokes has no airs and graces; he’s an individual but also a team player, a man who’ll bust a gut for his mates, as he showed on Saturday when he bowled a lengthy spell in sweltering conditions after Jofra Archer had gone down with cramp.
In short, Stokes is the sports star we’d all secretly love to be - the winner who parties hard and plays hard and makes it look so damned easy, even though he works harder than anyone in training.
“Shoes off, if you love Ben Stokes, shoes off, if you love Ben Stokes,” the Barmy Army sang at Headingley as Stokes annihilated the Ashes on Sunday afternoon.
As love songs go, few have been more heartfelt.
Today’s back pages
‘Burger king’ Ben Stokes eclipses Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
The Onion is having a very ironic laugh with Infowars
The Explainer The satirical newspaper is purchasing the controversial website out of bankruptcy
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
'Rahmbo, back from Japan, will be looking for a job? Really?'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
What's next for electric vehicles under Trump?
Today's Big Question And what does that mean for Tesla's Elon Musk?
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Graham Thorpe obituary: 'chameleon' batsman with 100 England caps
In depth Cricketer's 'bottle in abundance' endeared him to fans
By The Week UK Published
-
The Ashes: can England mount a glorious comeback?
feature ‘Herculean’ task follows ugly scenes at controversial second test
By The Week Staff Published
-
English cricket is ‘racist, sexist and elitist’, says independent report
Speed Read Chair of governing body apologises after crushing indictment of the sport ‘at all levels’
By Rebekah Evans Published
-
England are the ‘undisputed kings’ of white-ball cricket
feature Ben Stokes scored the winning run as England beat Pakistan in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup final
By Mike Starling Published
-
Ben Stokes and England set up a ‘grand finale’ against South Africa
feature In an old-school Test victory at Old Trafford, England’s captain scored a century and took four crucial wickets
By The Week Staff Published
-
‘Alarm bells’ for authorities: is there too much cricket being played?
Talking Point Ben Stokes quitting one-day internationals has sparked a debate over the packed schedule
By Mike Starling Published
-
‘Bazball’: England cricket’s glorious new look
Why Everyone’s Talking About A staggering turnaround has taken place under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes
By The Week Staff Published
-
England’s epic win: Test cricket that was ‘quite simply, out of this world’
Why Everyone’s Talking About Victory over New Zealand was one of the most ‘glorious and scintillating’ in England’s history
By The Week Staff Published