6 min readManchesterUpdated: Jul 27, 2025 12:36 AM IST
England's captain Ben Stokes celebrates after scoring a century on the fourth day of the fourth cricket test match between England and India at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester, England, July 26, 2025.(AP Photo/Jon Super)
England captain Ben Stokes is said to have gotten his biggest leadership lesson from a Brad Pitt war movie. Fury is about a US Army officer taking on the Germans in World War II. In an iconic scene from the movie, Pitt, playing tank commander Don “Wardaddy” Collier, tells his men to retreat as he plans to guard the post alone. This was his way of telling them that the mission was too dangerous. After a moment of hesitation, every soldier lines up behind Pitt.
“I would never ask somebody to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do. Have you seen Fury? The bit for me that stands out is when he tells them all to leave and he’s just going to stand there and fight on his own,” Stokes had once told The Times cricket correspondent Michael Atherton.
This India-England series has been Stokes’s Fury. For an England captain, leading from the front means doing the dirtiest of jobs. Today morning, England needed to be cautiously aggressive. They wanted quick runs but they couldn’t afford to throw wickets. Overnight the home team was 544/7, leading by 176 runs. England wanted a lead of about 300 to bat out India from the game and put them under scoreboard pressure.
So who would take the lead? Who else but Stokes. The two Indian new-ball bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj were much better today, the pitch too was showing life. But Stokes planned his assault well, it was easy to decide who he would take on. Siraj it would be. On his second ball of the day, Stokes would step out and drive through covers for a four.
The next Bumrah over he would get to play a couple of balls and move to the other end, where he would wait for Siraj’s second over. Once again on the second delivery, he got an over-pitched ball. Stokes would lean into it, go on his knees and blast it through cover. He held his pose as Old Trafford stood up and applauded. The Stokes show had commenced, the plan to score quickly, pile runs and put India into bat was on track. Here was a captain who would first draw the blueprint and also get into overalls to put in place the brick and mortar.
In the first session Stokes would hit 5 fours and 3 sixes to compile a quick hundred. The hands-on captain had once again set the tone and others had followed. Liam Dawson (26, 4×3) and Brydon Carse 47 (4×3, 6×2) followed the path that their captain had shown and India close to lunch were trailing by 311 runs. In the first session England had scored 115 runs in 22 overs. Once again the captain had run the hard yards.
It has been the same with the ball too. In this series, he has bowled over 125 overs, surely not the most in his team. But he bowled the longest spells in the toughest conditions. At Lord’s on the final day, it was anybody’s game. India was closing in on the total, England couldn’t afford to have bowled loose balls. It was a game Jofra Archer was returning to international cricket after a long break. Stokes was to take the role of a strike-bowler.
Once again England needed someone to strike the perfect balance – a bowler who can attack but not give away runs and also take wickets. It was in the second innings that Stokes bowled the most number of overs — 24. There were a couple of marathon spells in the heat of London. After one 9-over spell he bowled unchanged for 10 overs. He didn’t let off the pressure on India. In the first spell he got KL Rahul and there came another important strike at the right time.
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When Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah seemed all set to pull off a miracle. There were many worried English faces around the ground. That’s when Stokes became the tank commander from Fury, took it upon himself to close the game. The English captain would dig deep and bang a ball short. Bumrah would try to pull and get out.
England’s captain Ben Stokes celebrates after scoring a century on the fourth day of the fourth cricket test match between England and India at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester, England, July 26, 2025.(AP Photo/Jon Super)
At Lord’s, Stokes bowled 24 overs in the second, after his 20 in the first. Old Trafford too hasn’t eased his load. On the first day, he bowled 14 overs and 10 the next day. England needed to restrict India and Stokes’s 5 wickets went a long way in reducing them 583. A fiver and 100 in one Test, Stokes has been the hands-on captain in this crucial game.
For his Lord’s effort, Stokes would win praise from the rival camp. Siraj would say: “If you can learn from someone there is no shame, Ben Stokes bowled two spells of 10 overs each and hats off to him”. Even today after the England captain was leaving the field after his hundred, Siraj would run across and shake his hands.
The only player who can match Stokes’s charisma in this series is Rishabh Pant. The Indian wicket-keeper has shown in the series he too can change games by doing the dirtiest job in the most beautiful manner. Now that Pant is out, Stokes the Showman has the stage all to himself. And the rest of the England cast is just repeating his moves.
Sandeep Dwivedi is the Sports Editor at The Indian Express. He is one of India's most prominent sports journalists, known for his deep analytical insights and storytelling that often goes beyond scores and statistics to explore the human and cultural side of sports.
Professional Profile
Role: As the Sports Editor, he leads the sports coverage for the newspaper and the website.
Weekly Column: He writes "The Sports Column," a weekly feature where he provides sharp, narrative-driven perspectives on the biggest sporting news of the week.
Podcast: He is a frequent contributor to the "Express Sports" podcast (Game Time), where he discusses evolving trends in cricket and other international sports.
Areas of Expertise
While Dwivedi covers the entire sporting spectrum, his work is particularly noted in the following areas:
Cricket: He provides extensive coverage of the Indian National Team and the IPL. He frequently analyzes the leadership styles of figures like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Gautam Gambhir. He is known for tracking the transition phases of Indian cricket and the evolution of specific players like Kuldeep Yadav and Rishabh Pant.
Athletics & Olympic Sports: He has written extensively on Neeraj Chopra’s rise in javelin, the nuances of Indian shooting, and tennis legends like Sania Mirza and Leander Paes.
Human Interest Stories: A hallmark of his writing is his focus on the struggles and backgrounds of athletes, such as the sacrifices made by Shafali Verma’s father or the "silent battles" of veteran players like Cheteshwar Pujara.
Notable Recent Work & Themes
Leadership and Dynamics: Recently, he has written about the dynamic between Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma, arguing that personal friendship is not a prerequisite for team success.
Sports & Culture: His articles often intersect with global culture, such as his deep dive into the 100-year legacy of the Harlem Globetrotters and their role as American soft power during the Cold War.
The "Grey Areas" of Sport: He often addresses sensitive topics like the mental health of cricketers post-retirement, the "outrage industry" in sports broadcasting, and the impact of fan-wars on the game.
Tenure and Experience
Dwivedi has been with The Indian Express for over three decades. This experience allows him to provide historical context to modern sporting events, often comparing current crises or triumphs to those of previous generations.
You can follow his latest work and columns on his official Indian Express Author Profile. ... Read More
England’s captain Ben Stokes celebrates after scoring a century on the fourth day of the fourth cricket test match between England and India at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester, England, July 26, 2025.(AP Photo/Jon Super)
