Test cricket and the Ashes go hand in hand. While the Ashes gives you nail-biting games, it gives you some heroics too. Headingley Test was one of them where England all-rounder Ben Stokes sealed the deal for his side. A month ago he brought his team’s maiden 50-over World Cup home and after 1 month his heroics with the bat alongside the 11th man Jack Leach, took the side to the finish line. However, Justin Langer wasn’t happy with him.
England were bowled out for 67 in the 1st innings and when they came to bat in the final innings, they had to chase a huge target of 359 runs. Australia gave a tough fight and at one point, England required 73 runs to win with only 1 wicket in hand. A convincing victory looked just inch away for Australia but Stokes came in between.
He was batting on 67 when Stuart Broad got out and the next 62 balls he would face the likes of Pat Cummins, James Pattinson, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon, completed his century and win the match by 1 wicket. In between this, Australia missed fair chances of dismissals which included a run-out. Even they wasted a review which would have won them the game as well. Justin Langer didn’t like the way the game ended and he had a pretty uncomfortable talk with Tim Paine after the game.
“Opportunity, in my opinion, 71 to go, last ball of the over, there is no way there can be a run there. We would have got 6 balls at Leach, and we have gotta squeeze him, squeeze in on him. We can’t give an easy run like that. Were our plans clear enough to Stokes, do you reckon?,” asked an angry Langer.
Tim Paine also shared his way of thought where he said, “He wanted to sweep, from wide out of off. We thought that was actually a chance to get him out.”
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“We know we could have changed the fields, we could have bowled more bouncers. We had guys combining on saying, Bowl slower balls. Hazlewood bowled him 3 slower balls and he hit him for 3 sixes. So, 100% we can do things slightly differently. We didn’t panic. We didn’t shit ourselves , we tried our best. We had a crack, a guy had a day out. Yeah, absolutely I have been awake all night, I would have changed the field a hundred times. I think we all would have. But we did not,” he again added.
However, Justin Langer later revealed that Tim Paine came to talk about the incident in the board room where he said that he found that as “confronting”. Justin Langer too felt that way later and accepted that he made a mistake.
“After Painey said to me, I found that really confronting cause I had to admit that I made some mistakes. And I said, It is not a weakness mate, That is a strength. Because we all are human and it’s good to admit you weakness and vulnerability in front of your mates because then they will go, Oh, yeah, OK, we actually did some mistakes,” Langer said.
Notably, Australia later won the next Test match and retained the Ashes in 2019.
