Ben Stokes’ extraordinary ability to win matches and Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s cool temperament on the field have been compared by Australia star Ricky Ponting. Ponting asserts that, like the famous Indian hero, the England Test captain excels beyond his peers in handling stressful conditions. In the second Ashes Test at Lord’s, Stokes once again displayed his prodigious brilliance by almost single-handedly leading England to a win that tied the series.
He made history in the game by scoring 155 runs off 214 balls in a magnificent knock. This amazing performance versus Australia wasn’t a one-off. Stokes’ 135-run undefeated performance during the 2019 Ashes helped the home team win by a miraculous one-wicket margin at Leeds.
Ponting stated on the most recent edition of The ICC Review, “I think any international player is under pressure anytime they walk out to play, but Ben batting in the middle order or later order like he does, probably finds himself in more match-winning opportunity situations than some others might.
“The first person that comes to mind might be someone like Ms Dhoni who keeps popping up at the end of every T20 game to stop her, unlike Ben Stokes who does that at the end of test matches. The players who find themselves in this situation and who are there to win games, especially as a captain, are probably few, very many, in the history of the game.
Ponting said he was thinking about Stokes’ victories at Headingley on his exciting final day at Lord’s.
“I thought, and probably everyone thought they could do it again because we’ve seen it before, but it was probably a bit more gear they were looking for (in 2019),” he said. “Somewhere in the back of everyone’s mind I think when he started playing like that and how much of a resemblance there was to Headingley in 2019… Steve Smith dropped him…. and was abandoned by Marcus Harris at Headingley on the 116th. So ghosts like that from the past kept coming back.
Everyone probably thought they could do it again – Ponting on Ben Stokes during Headingley recall
When Stokes took on the Aussies at Lord’s on day five, many England fans and critics thought a Headingley revenge could be on the cards for 2019.
Unlike some legendary all-rounders of the past, Stokes’ numbers don’t reflect his potential. Average just over 36 with the stick and over 32 with the ball.
However,
Ponting looked beyond the stats and called him the clear winner of the game. Stokes, 32, has made 94 Test appearances so far, scoring 5,928 runs and scoring 197 goals.