Australia overcame Ben Stokes’ onslaught to register a convincing 43-run victory over England in the second Ashes Test at Lord’s on Sunday (July 2).
Chasing 371 to win, the Three Lions were reeling at 45/4 before Stokes and Ben Duckett added 132 runs for the fifth wicket to bail the team out of trouble.
After Duckett’s dismissal on 83, Stokes waged a lone battle for the hosts as he slammed a breathtaking century. The England skipper was well on course to take his side over the line single-handedly but Josh Hazlewood dismissed him for 155 off 214 balls to put the final nail in the coffin.
Subsequently, Australian bowlers wrapped up England’s tail in a jiffy and bundled them out for 327.
Stokes might have failed to take his team home this time around but Australian legend Ricky Ponting heaped praise on the England captain’s exploits, comparing his match-winning abilities with the great MS Dhoni.
"I think any international player is under pressure anytime they walk out to play, but Ben batting in the middle order or later order like he does, probably finds himself in more match-winning opportunity situations than some others might," Ponting said on the latest episode of The ICC Review.
"The first one that comes to mind is maybe someone like a Dhoni, who's there at the end in a lot of T20 games, and finishing games, whereas Ben's doing it at the end of Test matches, and there's not, probably not many, many players through the history of the game that have found themselves in that sort of role and are there at the end winning games, and especially as a captain," he added.
The Aussies were at the receiving end of Ben Stokes’ single-handed match-winning effort during the Ashes 2019 when he slammed 135 not out to script England’s narrow one-wicket victory at Headingley.
Ponting admitted that he had Stokes' hundred at Headingley in his mind during the last day’s play at Lord’s.
"I thought and everyone probably thought he could do it again because we've seen it happen before, but this was probably, slightly more runs that they were chasing (in 2019)," he said.
"In the back of the back of everyone's minds, I think once it started playing out the way that it was and how many similarities there were to Headingley in 2019...Steve Smith dropped him...and he was dropped on 116 by Marcus Harris at Headingley. So those sort of ghosts of the past kept coming back out."
With this victory, the Pat Cummins-led Australian team took a 2-0 lead in the five-match series. The third Ashes Test will be played at Headingley from July 6.
