The Cricket Paper Magazine 2nd June 2017 Retour à l'édition précédente

FROM DAWN 'TILL DUSK WITH BENWATCH
These days, in all formats and for whoever he is playing, Ben Stokes is always the player to watch. On the opening day of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy, as the Most Valuable Player in this season’s IPL for Rising Pune Supergiant, fully justifying his £1.7m price tag, and the force of cricketing nature on whom England’s pre-tournament status as favourites depends, it seemed rude even to think about taking your eyes off him for a moment. From almost the crack of dawn, when England’s brilliant all-rounder was put through a fitness test to see whether and how much his troublesome knee would allow him to bowl in the first match against Bangladesh, every ball he bowled, every time he touched the ball in the field, brilliantly on a couple of occasions, every look he looked, wince he winced or, in the event, word he “exchanged” with the Tigers’ century-maker Tamim Iqbal was the subject of the closest scrutiny.