Here.
Holy hand grenades, Stokes is a monster! He throws his arms wide and roars! England win by one wicket and the series is level in the most heart-stopping fashion imaginable!
I’ve got nothing clever to say about this. I just wanted a link from here to … it.
Well, I do have one odd thing to nail down in the memory. I had cricinfo going, as well as the BBC radio commentary (no idea if that link will survive but you surely know the one I mean). And all through those last few minutes, cricinfo (link above) was telling me what Aggers (or whoever) was just about to shout about.
When Stokes hit that final winning four, it came up silently on cricinfo. But I needed Aggers (or whoever) to confirm it, before I was convinced. For once, “unbelievable” was, for me, correct.
The World Cup, and now this.
LATER:
Here. At the top of a match report.
I have been hearing about cricket since forever, but you may be the first fan I have encountered. I have only the vaguest idea of how it is played. Can you recommend a good primer on the subject?
Chuck
Quite a while ago now, I wrote this, which may be of some use.
Since I wrote that, the hitting of the ball for “six”, i.e. over the boundary full toss, has become, because of one day cricket, a lot more common than it was then.
Stokes hit lots of sixes today, in his heroic not out century. Cricket fans are going to be talking about this one for ever.
A truly historic match. Undoubtedly the most memorable I have ever followed.
(The BBC audio, combined with the video, highlights of the climax are here, although again the link is perhaps unlikely to survive.)
Like you, I was following with both the Cricinfo scorecard and the TMS commentary from the BBC. And exactly like you, my Cricinfo was about 5-10 seconds ahead, so I always knew a summary of what the audio commentary was about to tell me.
But with about 30 left to win, I decided to switch off cricinfo so that I was truly live on the audio.
I’m glad I did. The moment that stands out is when Agnew says: “Lyon (the crowd falls silent) bowls, and Stokes has scythed that… It’s six or out… It’s SIX! It’s SIX!” The emotion I felt, in the 1-2 seconds before – then after – the question had been answered, will never leave me.
Combined with the dropped catch (“Has he just dropped the Ashes?”); the missed run out (listen to the co-commentator in the background: “Oh no, no, no!”); the LBW (“It’s umpire WILSON!”); the single (“and England can’t lose”); and of course the winning runs (“I can’t believe we’ve seen that”), this piece of commentary from Agnew will surely go down in the annals.
Even worse than 1981. I feel for all the traumatised Australian 12 year olds who got up to discover the result today, as I did in 1981.
I did not think 1981 could be outdone, but I think it was.
At risk of labouring the point, here are some of my favourite stats.
This was England’s highest run chase, ever. (Previous highest was in 1928/9).
First time England have one by 1 wicket since 1923.
Stokes scored 2 off his first 50 balls, and 74 off the last 42 balls. (Ratio of strike rates 44:1)
Stokes and Leach’s stand of 76 is the 3rd-highest 10th wicket partnership in the 4th innings to win ANY FIRST-CLASS match (highest is 78).
My favourite stat for this game is that the Stokes/Leach unbroken stand that won it for England at the end consisted of more runs than were scored by England in their entire first innings. 76 for 0 compared to 67 for 10.
Is it possible to have a great test match when both sides play really well throughout? This (great) test match certainly wasn’t that, because it see-sawed wildly. The contrast, between how badly England batted on day 2 and how well Stokes (and Leach) batted at the end, was about as extreme as you could ever reckon on seeing. Almost as weird was how Australia had one big stand (of 113), in their first innings of only 179.
This seems to be a frequent feature of Headingley test matches.
Incidentally, for anyone wondering, the “Miracle of Headingley Part I” was, as all of us cricket obsessives know (especially the still traumatised Michael Jennings), this.
A large amount of what happened between 1989 and 2003 was Australia getting revenge for that game, honestly. The fact that England started winning again at about the same time that the Australian players were too young to remember it is not a coincidence, in my opinion. I am not sure I even want this to happen again.