Stokes back to his best as he joins exclusive club

If you are going to join an illustrious group of cricketing legends, then you really want to do it in style.

That's exactly what Ben Stokes did as he became just the fifth man in history, after Sir Garfield Sobers, Jacques Kallis, Sir Ian Botham and Kapil Dev, to do the notable double of 5,000 runs and 150 wickets in the heat of the Test arena.

One ball he was on 4,997 Test runs, the next he was up to 5,003, as he etched his name in the history books by smoking a stunning six off Alzarri Joseph over long-on while stood on one leg.

That maximum came during a 20-run over - which had started with Stokes firing three fours in a row off the paceman - amid a longer, quite astonishing onslaught as the influential all-rounder took England from a dominant position in the second Test to a potentially unconquerable one.

As Stokes pummelled the helpless Joseph and Veerasammy Permaul with slog-sweeps, reverse-sweeps and mighty blows down the ground, he raced from 23 after 55 balls to 87 off 89. He plundered 64 runs from 34 deliveries in that period, with four sixes and eight fours. It was blistering batting.

Speaking on BT Sport, former England and Surrey player Mark Butcher said: "What strikes you being in the stadium is the noise the ball makes when it comes off Stokes' bat and disappears out of the ground. It is like an Indiana Jones whipcrack."

Stokes' landmark-clinching six off Joseph ensured he now shares a statistical achievement with Messrs Botham, Sobers, Kallis and Dev - and he is arguably as important to his team, perhaps even more, than that quality quartet were to theirs.

Stokes is very much the pulse of this England team - the man who steps up in times of crisis, or as was the case in Barbados on Thursday, steps on the