Stokes is back.
Okay - it’s very easy to get over excited as an England fan. As the Grade Cricketer say: 5-0.
Still, two weeks ago it seemed impossible that Ben Stokes would be competing in a five match series - a major uplift for the England side.
For many people, the England squad looked to be a 5-0 demolition with the initial squad announcement.
4-0 with Stokes in the side.
Maybe, just maybe a draw with Jofra Archer in the squad.
Even so, Stokes being back in the squad is a massive bonus for England, even if it’s only a morale boost.
It may have always been the case that the England all rounder always had his eye on the start of the Ashes but for many fans it seemed to have come out of the blue.
Quite rightly, earlier this year, having been rushed back from injury and having been in and out of various isolation bubbles for over a year, Stokes had had enough. Prioritising his mental health and his recovery from injury, he withdrew from selection.
Now, in a better frame of mind, the Durham man has made himself available once more for the Ashes.
In celebration of Stokes being back in the squad - okay he hasn’t achieved anything yet but it’s important - we thought we’d look at some other great cricketing comebacks.
Mitchell Johnson
As an England fan, the opinion of Mitchell Johnson changed very quickly from 2011 to 2013-14.
In 2010-2011, Johnson was a broken man.
England won the Ashes in Australia and The fast bowler was hounded constantly during the entirety of the series.
Johnson openly admitted that the songs of the Barmy Army during that series had affected his confidence.
A man with 313 Test wickets would never be kept down for long and accordingly, Johnson struck back.
With handlebar moustache and a newfound confidence, the Queensland born bowler tore through England’s batting line up in 2013-14, the contrast of which has rarely been seen.
Fawad Alam
If you’ve been out of a Test side for two years you’d probably think your moment has gone.
Out for five years, you’ve consigned yourself to never playing for your country again. Ten years and you’re wondering what you’re still doing playing.
In 2019, after over ten years away from the Pakistan team, Fawad Alam returned to the Test line up.
He’d got back into the side as a result of several strong years of good form in domestic cricket and after years of toil Fawad returned - with a glorious beard.
But it wasn’t just his facial hair that turned heads - the middle order batsman didn’t take long to show the selectors what they had been missing.
In just his third Test upon his return he scored his first century in over eleven years against New Zealand at the Bay Oval.
This game and three more subsequent centuries has marked an incredible return for Fawad.
Ian Botham
Botham remains one of the best loved British sportsmen of the last fifty years - most of which was based on the summer of 1981.
England had gone into that Ashes summer under the captaincy of Botham but found themselves 1-0 down after two games.
The all rounder subsequently resigned from the captaincy after the Lords Test with both England and Botham in disarray.
The rest of the summer was Botham’s for the taking.
The following game was the famous Headingley Test in which Botham’s heroics, alongside Bob Willis, led England to overturn a follow-on deficit and pull off a remarkable comeback. England won that game against odds of 500-1 at one stage and went on to take the series 3-1 in a series that will forever be known as Botham’s Ashes.
Sachin Tendulkar
It is easy to forget that amongst the great career of Sachin Tendulkar there were some pretty lean periods.
This is understandable when you have a career of twenty-four years that there is bound to be dry spells - the important thing is how you bounce back.
After his record-equalling twenty-ninth Test century to equal Don Bradman’s record in 2002 against the West Indies, Sachin found himself in a dire batting spell before eventually beating the Don’s tally later that year.
As good a comeback as this was (considering how many had written him off at the time) his biggest comeback was yet to come.
A fifteen month hundred-less famine scourged the Indian talisman for a period between October 2002 and January 2004.
By the time India played Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in the 2003-04 Series Down Under there were serious rumblings about the form of the Little Master. At this stage, he was still only thirty years old but already many questioned whether he had reached an unavoidable decline.
In true Tendulkar style in the final Test of the series at Sydney, he smashed an incredible 241 not out.
There were other troughs in his career but importantly over the next nine years of cricket, Tendulkar scored a further nineteen Test centuries...quite some comeback.
If Ben Stokes can come close to any of these comebacks, England fans are in for a real treat.
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