News, Rugby December 22, 2019

Cricket and Ben Stokes clean up at BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards

Cricket and Ben Stokes clean up at BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards
It’s a rare occasion when cricket captures the British sporting imagination so thoroughly that it cuts through into events such as the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) awards. Since the awards ceremony’s inception, only five cricketers have won the top prize in its 65-year history. The SPOTY awards are voted on by the general public and therefore are seen as a mark of sporting achievements that transcend statistical greatness and touch the hearts of the nation.
BBC award winning cricketers down the years

In 1956 the first cricketing winner was Jim Laker, still rated as one of world cricket’s finest ever spin bowlers whose crowning achievement came that year by taking nineteen of twenty wickets against Australia at Old Trafford enabling an England victory. To this day that remains a Test record.

Then came the unlikely hero, David Steele who earned himself the moniker “the bank clerk that went to war” because of his greying hair (he was only 33 at the time) and his stalwart performances against Australia. He is also famous for very nearly becoming the first ever batsman to time out because of a blunder made leaving the pavilion and supposedly heading onto the field of play. Steele went down one too many flights of stairs at Lords and found himself lost in the basement toilets. Just making out onto the wicket in time he was then faced by the bowling and verbal terror of Jeff Thompson, who on seeing Steele’s appearance asked, “Bloody hell, who’ve we got here, Groucho Marx?” But Steele went on to have the last laugh scoring 50, 45, 73, 92, 39 and 66 in that 1975 Ashes series and earning himself the SPOTY trophy as a result.

The next cricketer to win the prestigious awards was the legendary Sir Ian Botham. Once again it was heroics against Australia that earned him the accolade in 1981 when he put in a huge shift with both bat and ball to drag England to one of their most famous Ashes series victories. His series that year started abysmally with him being out for a pair and relieved of the England captaincy in the first match. And so his reversal of fortune with bat – possibly with the weight of captaincy now back on Mike Brearley’s shoulders – was all the more remarkable. The pinnacle of the series being the fight back by Botham with the bat in the third Test at Headingly. England had got themselves into such a parlous state that bookies were offering 500-1 against them winning that match. And yet a remarkable 145 not out by Botham and Bob Willis’ 8-43 somehow afforded them the most unlikely of wins. England went on to win the series that year and Sir Ian Botham the SPOTY awards.

Another allrounder claimed the 2005 prize off the back of yet another heroic Ashes series victory. Freddy Flintoff, when not being photographed cavorting in pedalos was busy tearing into Australia with bat and ball. Captain Michael Vaughan’s team took the British nation’s nerves to their ragged jangling ends that year, just scraping over the line in a thrilling final test to regain the Ashes for the first time in 18 years. The roaring heart of the team was Andrew Flintoff who ended the final and deciding Test at Trent Bridge with a century and a fifer to his name.

The BBC’s latest conquering cricketing hero, enter Ben Stokes

But cricket has had to wait a further fourteen years for another hero to emerge and sweep the public vote. 2019 was undoubtedly a comeback year for English cricket with their first every victory in a World Cup in that incredible, nail-biting final against New Zealand. And ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’. Another allrounder, Ben Stokes.

A man in need of redemption after his 2017 bar fracas and the subsequent court case that saw him eventually cleared of the charge of affray but which brought him and his family unwanted tabloid attention. 2019 was his chance to put that bad news to bed and rewrite his own sporting history and boy did he do it. His ICC World Cup batting stats were 465 runs at an average of 66.42 which culminated in that thrilling and emotionally exhausting final innings of 84 not out, which incredibly levelled the match and led to the first ever Super Over final which amazingly also produced a further tie but with England winning the match because of more boundaries scored.

Not content with a World Cup winning year he then went on to stamp his authority on the Ashes and while not managing to get England to a series-winning position – it ended 2-2 with Australia retaining the urn – Stokes still produced what many experts have declared as the greatest ever Test innings. He simply set the BBC’s much loved around the world Test Match Special radio cricket commentary programme alight.

His remarkable single-handed demolition of Australia in the third Test at Headingly (what is it with 3rd Tests at Headingly?) which ended with an England victory and him finishing on 135 not out, was the icing on a truly unforgettable year. Ben Stokes was the 2019 BBC Sports Personality of the Year. And not to be outdone, the Eoin Morgan’s World Cup-winning England team were crowned 2019 Team of the Year and that final winning moment as Buttler whipped off the bails to land England the trophy, was named Greatest Sporting Moment of the year.

In his acceptance speech Stokes said:

“There’s so many people you feel you have to thank when you’re up here. It’s an individual award, but I play a team sport and one of the great things about that is you get to share special moments with those team-mates, coaches and without that effort you put in, I wouldn’t be up here receiving this award so thank you so much.”

What next for Stokes and England’s cricket team

Can Stokes and England do the double and bring home next year’s T20 World Cup from Down Under? If so it’s very likely that they will find themselves shortlisted once again for the award. The stats tell us though, that cricketing greatness only cuts through occasionally amongst the noise of other sporting achievements but nobody can argue that the loudest roar this year was from the lions on the chest of Ben Stokes and his teammates. Congratulations!