Stokes has the last laugh as England’s have-a-chase ethos wins big
Ben Stokes had the last laugh at Headingley. “It’s a good job Test cricket is played over five days, isn’t it?” he said with a smile, when asked if he had ever doubted his decision to bowl first on winning the toss was the right one as India raced to 430 for 3 in their first innings. “Imagine thinking that way at the end of day one, before we’ve even had a chance to bat.”
His decision paid off in style: while England had anticipated more assistance from the surface on the first morning, Stokes’ call was also informed by the characteristics of the venue and his team’s own success in run-chases. The result was a cruise to victory with 14 overs to spare and five wickets in hand on the fifth day, making light work of a 371-run target.
England became kings of the fourth innings during their heady winning run in their 2022 home summer. They successfully hauled in targets of 250-plus in Stokes’ first four Tests as full-time captain, culminating when he declared England would “have a chase” when winning the toss against India at Edgbaston and then watched his batters reach 378 with seven wickets in hand.
They had only once chased 250-plus in the intervening years, a three-wicket win over Australia, also at Headingley in 2023, and have fallen to some big defeats when set even bigger totals – for example, by 434 runs in Rajkot last year. But their win in Leeds this week was their sixth successful chase of 250-plus since Stokes took over; no other team has more than two.
It was vindication for Stokes’ decision to field first, a choice he has already made more often than any other England captain. This was the 11th time that Stokes has opted to bowl first, and England have won eight of those games; they have lost only twice, a narrow defeat at Lord’s in the 2023 Ashes and a 423-run hammering in Hamilton late last year.
Their record owes in no small part to the nature of English Test surfaces: all six 250-plus chases have been at home, and this week’s pitch laid bare how much things have changed. The trend at Headingley for nearly a decade now has been for scores to go up and up with each innings; rather than deteriorating, the Leeds pitches seem only to flatten out as each match wears on.
The flak that Stokes received on the first day reflected the truism that batting first is invariably the best option at the toss, with captains who decide otherwise generally criticised far more than their bowling attacks: it was two decades ago that Ricky Ponting chose to bowl at Edgbaston, and even longer since Nasser Hussain did at Brisbane, yet neither man can escape association with those calls.
Stokes did seem to admit that things had not quite gone as he had anticipated when asked to elaborate on his toss decision: he said that it was informed more by a desire to exploit the “top moisture” in the first session than the expectation of setting up a run-chase. But his logic made sense: his inexperienced attack needed all the help they could get from the pitch.
He also believes that England’s early success in run-chases under his and Brendon McCullum’s leadership has helped his team stay calmer in the fourth innings. “We’re a very simple-minded pair,” Stokes said. “Everyone knows what cricket’s about: it’s about scoring more runs than your opposition, when you strip it all back.
“When you’re chasing down totals like that, how you are in the dressing room is very important because lads have got jobs to go out and do. Keeping the calm, relaxed vibe as much as we can is so important for the mindset… Cricket’s about taking wickets and scoring runs, but also the mindset you’re able to get your players into.”
Stokes’ public indifference towards the draw has also provided clarity: there has never been any prospect of England dropping anchor and looking to block out a stalemate. “Everyone goes out there with a pretty clear mind about what we are trying to do,” he said. “Time wasn’t really an issue. It was pretty simple yesterday: if we bat the overs left in this game, we will win this game, just because of how quick the ground has been for scoring.”
Ben Duckett’s 149 provided England with the perfect platform for their run-chase, and also reflected the best of their method with the bat under Stokes: soaking up pressure when facing Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj’s new-ball spell under thick cloud, then putting it back onto Prasidh Krishna, Shardul Thakur and Ravindra Jadeja when England were on top.
Duckett was not part of England’s run of successful chases in 2022, but said that he and his team-mates never panicked on the final day at Headingley. “It felt really calm in the dressing room,” he said, before paying tribute to another common thread of England’s fourth-innings success: “It’s pretty easy to be calm when Rooty is at the crease.”
It was Jamie Smith who hit the winning runs off Jadeja, but Root’s unbeaten half-century was hugely valuable and took him past Alastair Cook to become England’s leading scorer in successful chases. Under Stokes’ leadership, he has walked off unbeaten in six out of eight fourth-innings wins, and with at least 50 runs to his name on five of those occasions.
But whether the primary reason for this is pitches, mindset or individual brilliance, one thing is clear: England’s fourth-innings successes over the last three years mean that Stokes deserves the benefit of the doubt next time he wins the toss and chooses to bowl.