Ben Stokes makes his mark for Durham with rapid 95

At Chester-le-Street on Saturday Ben Stokes was a different gravy. On a perfect June day of pillowy clouds and cornflower sky, he hit a 95 that might have said a thousand things, but confirmed he could play a mean pinball.

Marching down the Riverside steps with Durham 30 for three and 871 people in the crowd wasn’t quite striding out at the Oval to a full house, but what followed was at the highest level, a celebration of midsummer in all its excess – a 95-run tee-off. He was off the mark hot-stepping down the pitch to Northamptonshire’s Harry Conway and panned him through mid-off for four.

He continued in the same vein, advancing like a great beast and spraying fours – 18 of them – straight-driving Mr Frugality, Ben Sanderson (four for 81), through his legs, a backfoot square cut, a quickstep down the wicket, smoking Luke Procter down the ground via his left hand which still, by some trick of the light, has five digits.

There was a chance, on 43, when Stokes got a thick top-edge and Conway out in the deep shifted left and right and let the ball through his fingers, wishing for a cold dark cellar. His fifty soon rolled past, off 51 balls, and on he went – back-foot splayed wristy cut, through extra cover, another past the watching cherry-hatted slips. A hundred seemed inevitable – that script writer can be predictable – but tea intervened when he was on 95. And two overs after the interval he was yorked by Conway. A north-east sigh segued into rolling applause.

For the pocket crowd who watched, alongside their dogs and with melting ice creams from the CLS van, it was a little envelope of joy. For England national selector Marcus North, looking on from the media centre, it was something to chew over. For Will Rhodes, who batted very well for 62, and put on 153 with Stokes, it was a rare treat to bat with the man who he still sees as the England captain.

“Its been a pleasure to have him around, to see him in full flow, everything he did had a method to it, that’s so impressive for me to be at the other end of,” he said. “I think he’s always got a hunger, he’s probably got a bit of a point to prove, everyone here wants to see him back in that England shirt, as much as we love having him here, he’s got bigger and better things to do. It’s probably quite a weird situation for him but he’s managed himself amazingly well in these last two days.”

There is a good chance that Stokes won’t see out the rest of the match and will disappear back into the England bubble, but he’s left his mark.

[Source: The Guardian]