Ben Stokes admitted his first response to hitting England’s highest one-day rating was an apology to the person whose report he broke, Jason Roy.
Stokes smashed 182 as England romped to victory within the third ODI towards New Zealand, with the whole touring aspect mustering simply 5 extra runs between them chasing 369.
For the 32-year-old Test captain the explosive innings was an thrilling vindication of his choice to come back out of retirement and return to the fold forward of subsequent month’s World Cup defence in India.
As he smashed 9 sixes and 15 fours over the course of 124 deliveries it was virtually onerous to think about England going into battle with out him.
But whereas head coach Matthew Mott and captain Jos Buttler will need to have been thanking their fortunate stars the middle-order match-winner was again in enterprise, Stokes himself made a beeline for Roy.
The opening batter missed out on a deliberate comeback after a being laid low by again spasms, confining him to a watching temporary as Stokes leapfrogged the 180 Roy made in Melbourne in 2018.
After greater than 5 years in high spot, Roy was passing over the crown and smiled broadly as he clapped his team-mate’s achievement.
“I just apologised to Jase upstairs,” Stokes stated.
“He said ‘well done’ and I said ‘sorry’. I don’t think there was too much to it. He’ll be pretty happy he’s seen one of his team-mates, who he’s played a lot of cricket with, take that off him.
“But individual stuff like that I’m not too fussed about. I didn’t really know I’d done it until the bloke on the tannoy started announcing it and then I got out next ball. It was his fault!”
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While Stokes was not inclined to speak up his personal efforts, he did admit to a way of satisfaction at spending an prolonged interval within the center and setting his aspect on the trail to a good-looking victory.
The profitable margin of 181, one run lower than his personal private rating, stated the remaining.
“It’s good to come back in after a while out and put a big contribution into us winning the game,” he stated.
“I think today was good for me, to get familiarity again with how 50-over cricket goes. To get that game awareness, game smartness.
“There was a couple of times I had to check myself – I looked up and there was still 23, 24 overs left. That’s how one-day cricket goes, you can find yourself going pretty well and you want to keep going but you look up at the scoreboard and have to drag yourself back.”
Buttler was pleased with the best way England responded to an early double from Trent Boult, who dismissed Jonny Bairstow with the opening ball of the day and adopted up by dismissing Joe Root cheaply.
“We were tested losing two early wickets but it’s exactly what I wanted us to do, take more risks, be more on the front foot,” he advised BBC’s Test Match Special.
“Ben’s played a few good ones, but to make the highest one-day score for England, that was amazing.”
The sport was over as a contest lengthy earlier than the top got here, Chris Woakes taking three for 31 in a scientific new-ball burst alongside Reece Topley. The pair made up amply for the continued absence of Mark Wood and Adil Rashid from the bowling ranks, shutting down the Kiwis response early on.
“I was absolutely delighted with that, I haven’t seen as good new-ball bowling in white-ball cricket for a while,” stated Buttler.
“It was a fantastic opening spell.”
The collection concludes at Lord’s on Friday earlier than the rivals meet once more within the World Cup curtain-raiser in Ahmedabad simply over two weeks later.
With that contest in thoughts, Kiwi coach Gary Stead famous drily: “I don’t mind watching Ben Stokes. I’d rather he scored his runs now than on October 5.”
