Friday 8 September 2017 10:33, UK
A lot of people have to wait a long time to get a hundred or five wickets to get up on the Lord's honours board but Ben Stokes is now up there for both - and he was absolutely terrific on Thursday.
He showed all his finest colours as a seam bowler, lots of swing - prodigious swing - and seam movement as well in the gloom, under the lights. He got the ball to talk, it was a vital spell and it showed his stamina as well, bowling virtually 15 overs unbroken.
The hope is that this is a sign that his bowling is moving forward in the way his batting has done in the past 12 months because as a frontline seam bowler, even if you're second change, you can't afford to give away runs.
That situation is exacerbated by the fact that England's spinner, whoever that may be, is likely to leak runs. You can't have the spinner and Stokes leaking runs. I'm sure with a guru like James Anderson in the side - and Stuart Broad as well - that Stokes will continue to tighten up his line and length.
He's getting more mature by the second, he's the vice-captain of this side, he doesn't lose his cool so often. He had a dolly catch dropped off his bowling today and he just walked back to his mark, there was no spitting or fuming, he just got on with the job.
He's a fast maturing cricketer, he knows his financial value as a cricketer in the IPL - goodness knows what his contract in the IPL will be next year with the new broadcasting deal - but he's a real entertainer and it has got under Sir Ian Botham's skin that he has been rested for that T20 international at his home ground in Durham. Beefy is very much hoping that the ECB have a rethink about that.
Stokes has got a long way to go to get into Anderson's class as a bowler but the Lancastrian would have been proud of the ball that dismissed Roston Chase.
That was a once in a lifetime delivery really: swinging in, pitching and hitting the top of off stump.
You could tell by the movement of Chase, he was completely spun around like a top, completely defeated by the delivery. He thought he might have been lucky but then he heard the death rattle behind him as the top of off stump went back. An absolute beauty.
Jimmy himself is still one short of 500 Test wickets but said earlier in the week he thinks he could play until he is 40. Good luck to him if he thinks he can stay fit for that length of time. And why not?
He takes very little out of himself with his run up, he has had a few injuries over the last 18 months but they seem to be behind him at the moment. The England selectors look after him pretty well too. I think it helped him to play quite a lot of red ball cricket early in the season.
We want people snapping at Anderson and Broad's heels, though, to try and put their best foot forward to become England's new No 1 and 2 bowlers. Who is it going to be?
We hope it is Stokes; and Chris Woakes is another fine all-round cricketer. Toby Roland-Jones has shown his colours in this home series, clearly life is going to be more difficult in Australian conditions.
There is going to be a real scramble for those back-up seam bowling places on the flight to Australia in November.
