Stokes, on average, has a success rate of 76 per cent in slips. ©AFP
In training, Ben Stokes' catching drills are, by design, set up to be more difficult than what he encounters in a game. The theory being that when a batsman edges the ball off Dom Bess in a Test match, say, the chance feels easier than practice and he then should catch it as a result. It's a concept Eddie Jones uses with England's rugby union team, too, one that he picked up from watching a Pep Guardiola training session at Bayern Munich a few years ago. Jones says his main focus now is on making every training session he runs harder than a match so that the matches seem easier to his players.
In Stokes' case, his training involves standing extremely close to the bat when he is practising slip catches off the spinners. He also puts obstacles in the way so the ball might move off them late, forcing him to react. Watching Stokes go through these drills, it's easy to flinch as the ball first hits the bat, then ricochets off one of the obstacles, before reaching him. Thinking about a possible second deflection is disconcerting, even just watching Stokes. Will the ball hit the obstacle, will it not? If it does, will it make a beeline for Stokes' face? But Stokes doesn't flinch. He stands there and tries to catch flies.
And yet, for some reason, Stokes keeps dropping catches in matches.
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