Ben Stokes back as England’s specialist superhero for T20 World Cup

Shut your eyes and it’s not hard to picture the enduring images of Ben Stokes’s England career. In Test cricket he’s almost certainly leaning back, arms in the air at Headingley, roaring after he’s just cut away, cut away for four. In ODIs he’s probably decked out in baby/powder blue, arms aloft once again but this time with innocent eyes. Martin Guptill’s throw has deflected off Stokes’s bat for the six that no one saw coming. Not long afterwards, Stokes will have the World Cup trophy in his hands.

In the shortest form, however, the image is a painful one. It’s a night in Kolkata in 2016. Stokes is down on his haunches, eyes bloodshot,hands over his head, Joe Root crouched behind him, trying to comfort his old friend. Four balls have come and gone, each one of them sailing off Carlos Brathwaite’s bat for six. West Indies are World T20 champions and Eoin Morgan’s band of upstarts are still a while away from turning into the real deal.

Six and a half years later, Stokes is back for another shot at the trophy he was an over away from lifting. He missed last year’s T20 World Cup while taking a break from the game and since then his devotion has been entirely to the red ball; he hasn’t played a T20 since July 2021.

After putting on the ODI pyjamas this summer, he quickly called it a day, recognising the toll of trying to play everything in a world that increasingly demands sacrifice. He later opted out of the Hundred and the T20 internationals against South Africa, once more doing his bit for the purists as he focused on theTest revolution.

Stokes hasn’t become entirely allergic to the white ball. That retirement didn’t include Twenty20 cricket and despite his prolonged absence from the format his appearance in England’s