"It seemed fitting, as the final moments ticked down at the Sydney Cricket Ground, as the day, the match, the tour seemed to ooze and melt a little at the edges under a hard white January sun, that Ben Stokes should finish this Ashes series still standing, but only just. It was at least a suitably slapstick final session in front of a scattered, holiday-ish crowd."
"Australia custard-pied their way to a victory total of 160, narrowly avoiding falling pianos, dangling off giant clocktowers along the way. It felt fitting too that the endgame should revolve around England's tried and trusted short-and-wide masterplan, a series that will remain fixed in the mind as an endless looping meme of an English seamer being square-cut to some distant crowing boundary. In the middle of this Stokes spent the day wedged in at first slip, nursing his newly acquired groin injury, a cricketer who is by this stage basically a hat, a collection of splints nailed together and a grimace."
"Again, it is no surprise that Stokes should be grimacing, stricken and wincing with agony. As a rule, unless specifically stated otherwise it should be assumed Stokes is always grimacing, stricken and wincing with agony. Cricket demands a daylong public persona. Stokes has his own version down pat, a kind of performative doom state, a showmanship of pain, like the hero in a western holding his chest and staggering backwards slowly through the saloon doors, but doing it for six hours straight from mid-morning to the afternoon shadows."
Ben Stokes finished the Ashes series barely standing after a gruelling final session at the Sydney Cricket Ground under a hard January sun. Australia reached 160 and secured victory amid slapstick imagery and near-miss theatrics. England relied on a short-and-wide plan that repeatedly yielded square-cut boundaries. Stokes spent the day at first slip nursing a groin injury while adopting a persistent grimace and performative display of pain. England's tour appeared feeble against a depleted Australia, intensified by nonstop online scrutiny and round-the-clock content demands that compounded the tour's pressures.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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