What’s holding back Ben Stokes, the batter?

73 players in Test history have more than 6000 runs.

83 players have more than 200 Test wickets. 

But only three players have achieved both: Jacques Kallis, Gary Sobers and Ben Stokes. 

Stokes is perhaps the best package that one could ever desire. Add his captaincy to the equation, you will be left dumbfounded by what he has done to world cricket. He might only be behind the likes of Imran Khan, Kapil Dev and Sobers to have an influence on his country. 

But for someone so ridiculously good, Stokes has had his flaw that has come out in the open over the last two years, and that’s his batting. 

Pre-captaincy, Stokes averaged 35.77 with the bat while still striking at 57.5. 

Interestingly, though, there was a theme that surrounded Stokes’ career before he donned that armband. If you look closely at his career, there were definitely some lows—2015, 2018, 2021—but what surrounded those lows were some of the best highs.

Such as his average of 45.2 in 2016, when he scored 904 runs in just 21 innings, or the 821-run year he had in 2019, including that famous knock in Headingley. Even when he had a lull after COVID, with an average of 21.71 in 2021, it was quickly overturned by averaging 32.9 the next year. 

Whenever he had his back against the wall, he found ways to bounce back.

But ever since he has taken over captaincy, that side of Stokes hasn’t come to the fore, with his batting experiencing such a steep decline that you can't ignore it. 

Since Bazball took over English cricket, Stokes’ batting has remained in the shadows of his peers. Everyone, starting with Ollie Pope (41.26 average, 74.1 SR) to the now-dropped Jonny Bairstow (45.96 avg, 87.8 SR), average both significantly higher than the English captain and also strike consistently much better.  

Hence, Stokes’ batting has indeed come under the scanner. 

You look at it closely: since his counter-attacking 80 against Australia in Leeds during the 2023 Ashes, the English all-rounder has only averaged 23.5 with the bat, scoring 376 runs with just three fifties. 

While it might certainly look like good numbers for an all-rounder, Stokes hardly bowled during that period. You would be shocked to notice that eight of the 16 innings in that period were single-figure scores. 

Five of those eight figures came in India, a place where Stokes played as a specialist batter. One game after another, the left-hander struggled to cope against the tweakers and Jasprit Bumrah as his batting deficiencies came out in the open.  

So, what’s hurting Stokes, the batter?

There isn’t a more evident pattern in Stokes’ dismissals than the balls hitting the stumps. 17 out of the 27 recorded dismissals show that you target the stumps, you have a very good chance of dismissing the English skipper. 

Whenever the bowlers have targetted the stumps, Stokes has even struggled to put up runs on board, with an average of just 17.9 and a strike rate of 58.1. It was on display during England’s visit to India, a trip where the spinners targetted the stumps quite often. 

On that particular tour, Stokes was seen playing an extremely defensive brand of batting, getting into a shell that led to his failure, something that even Indian off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin pointed out following the series. 

“I just felt like when Stokes gets into these very defensive shells, he allows you to come a little fuller and wider on occasions because he’s worried so much about the LBW. His bat is almost, pointing down to the ground that he gets into the zones of literally being extra tight and he could just lunge forward to every single ball on those occasions,” Ravichandran Ashwin told Indian Express.

“In Hyderabad he wanted to play a lot of the back-foot. It was the slowest surface that I’ve seen in all these years of playing cricket. So when the ball turns, it just beats your bat and doesn’t hit the stump. So Stokes was hanging back. That’s the same load he found himself in Ranchi.”

“Over here, I felt his front foot was moving farther than usual — because he wanted to hit and at the same time, get to lunch. So I just wanted to keep the line a little outside offs-stump to see if you would lunge. And my intention was to get him out LBW,” he added further. 

Even in the first Test against West Indies in the ongoing series, it was exactly where the visiting left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie bowled, disturbing the timber. It is that mental block between going on the front foot and hanging onto the back foot that has caused him trouble against spin. 

But against pace, his problem is a little more compound. While bowlers have still been rewarded handsomely for targeting the stumps, they have also employed the short ball strategy, which has paid dividends. 

Stokes has been dismissed five times as a captain against short deliveries, including two in the same series against New Zealand. It was something that even Jayden Seales noticed, as he got him pulling straight down to the throat of the deep fielder. 

It has now become overtly evident that Stokes, as a batter, is undergoing a dull patch with the bat, but why it is worrying is that it has been seven Tests already in the year without much impact. 

If there aren’t too many big scores on the horizon, Stokes, the batter, might well make the headlines (for the wrong reasons). 

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