Ben Stokes finds form against Pakistan after poor IPL season

On Tuesday, England will announce their final squad of 15 players, who will be favourites to win the Men’s World Cup for the first time in England’s history. If they are to make good on this promise, they will need to be able to summon the best version of Stokes.

After a poor season in the Indian Premier League, and not being needed to bat in the first two one-day internationals against Pakistan, Stokes was promoted up the order, to number four, in the last two ODIs. He responded just as England envisaged, contributing 37 and 71* to help England clinch large run chases.

Friday’s innings, helping England from a precarious 216-5 and 258-6 to haul down 341, was particularly impressive, showcasing Stokes’s ability to marry careful accumulation with occasional fierce blows, and gauge the changing requirements in an innings.

“It’s always nice to get some time out in the middle,” Stokes said. “Trent Bridge is probably the place you want to do it as it’s known as the best batting track in England. It’s good to take some confidence forward knowing the World Cup is just around the corner.

“I think chopping and changing from different formats, it can be a bit tough. The role I play in this one day team is not too dissimilar to the way I’ll try and go about Test cricket. I guess, the most confidence I’ll take from that is being there at the end – it was one thing I wanted to make sure I was and not throw it away when we got to that winning position. It is good to get some runs under my belt.”

Even while becoming the world-leaders in ODI cricket England have rather endearingly retained a penchant for self-immolation - being bowled out for 113 in St Lucia and losing by 219 runs in Colombo in the last year. There were shades of an encore in a mid-innings collapse of 4-15 in under three overs at Trent Bridge, making the series-clinching victory especially satisfying.

“As everyone knows through a series we generally seem to have a stinker somewhere - that looked like it could have been that game for us,” Stokes said.

“The confidence we’ll take from that from losing a quick three wickets and then finishing the job off will stand us in great stead. We bat so deep that we can take the games deeper.”

Twice this summer - at Trent Bridge and at Malahide against Ireland - England have been indebted to the runs of Tom Curran at number eight. Curran appears a vastly improved cricketer over the past year, and it is hard to see how England can now leave him out of their final World Cup 15.

“I think it’s been fantastic to see guys who are in the squads and don’t often get to play come in and do so well,” Stokes said. “Tom Curran has been one of those guys who gets a chance and then is out of the team. He’s one of the guys who when he walks out onto the field he’s obviously desperate to perform, he wants to be involved in everything.

"He was biting the bullet when he was out there batting. He wants to win games and I think he’s performed very very well and put an extra scratch on Ed Smith’s head with selection around the corner.”

Stokes’s bowling is not in as fine fettle as his batting. He has only bowled 13 overs in four games this series, conceding 84 runs while not taking a wicket. In the IPL, he stopped bowling because of a hamstring issue; in recent games he has grappled with an elbow complaint, though he maintains that he is fit to bowl 10 overs if required. And no amount of niggling pain can detract from his excitement about what lies ahead this English summer.

“I can’t remember when I was talking about it - it might have been last night - how lucky we are to be involved in a home World Cup and a home Ashes series in the same summer,” he said. “It’s very very exciting to think about and I just want it to start because of having to answer to many questions about it. Yeah it’s an amazing time to be an England cricketer with this summer coming up.”

There seems a strong likelihood that Stokes will be rested in the final ODI, with the series safely won and England still experimenting ahead of the World Cup.

Both Joe Denly and David Willey - who are probably competing for a solitary berth in the final 15, named on Tuesday - could well play. After his one-game suspension for England’s slow over-rate, Eoin Morgan will return to lead the side. The next time he leads England in a bilateral ODI, it may be as a World Cup champion.