After a difficult year on the personal and professional level, England’s dynamic all-rounder Ben Stokes showed signs of returning to his best with a stunning knock of 120 in just 128 deliveries against West Indies during the second Test of the ongoing series at the Kensington Oval in Barbados.
Through the course of an explosive knock that included 11 boundaries and six sixes, Stokes became the fifth player in Test cricket history to have scored 5000 runs with the bat and taken 150 wickets. The 30-year-old joined Gary Sobers, Ian Botham, Kapil Dev, and Jacques Kallis in the rare list of players to have achieved the same.
The century was Stokes’ first three-figure score in international cricket since the death of his late father Ged in December 2020. The star all-rounder did an emotional celebration with the familiar gesture of bending his middle-finger and looking up to the sky.
Stokes had earlier explained that the gesture is a tribute to his father who was forced to get his finger amputated after suffering multiple injuries while playing Rugby in the 1980’s. Ged had passed away after prolonged illness in 2020.
Stokes called this innings was one of his most memorable ones and called it a ‘nice feeling’ to remember his late father after reaching the three-figure mark. “It’s a very special feeling. It was nice out there to look up to the sky and say ‘cheers’,” said Stokes.
“I don’t like to speak selfishly but it was nice out there to look up to the sky and say ‘cheers’. Of the hundreds I’ve got that’s personally one of the more memorable ones because of everything that’s gone on over the last 18 months or two years.
