"Ben's doing it at the end of Test matches" - Ricky Ponting compares Stokes' match-winning ability with MS Dhoni

Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has compared Ben Stokes' match-winning ability with that of Indian legend MS Dhoni. According to the Aussie great, Stokes’ ability to handle pressure among current players puts him in a league of his own.

England’s Test captain Stokes played a blinder of a knock in the second innings of the Lord’s Test, smashing 155. Although the knock went in vain, the all-rounder won a lot of plaudits for his performance. Earlier, Stokes played starring roles in England’s 2019 ODI World Cup win and 2022 T20 World Cup triumph.

His hundred at Lord’s had shades of Headingley 2019 when Stokes’ epic 135* led England to a famous one-wicket win. However, the England captain was left with too much to do this time.

Praising Stokes’ ability to deliver under pressure, Ponting paid him a massive compliment and said on The ICC Review:

"I think any international player is under pressure anytime they walk out to play, but Ben batting in the middle order or later order like he does, probably finds himself in more match-winning opportunity situations than some others might."

The former Australian captain added:

“The first one that comes to mind is maybe someone like a Dhoni, who's there at the end in a lot of T20 games, and finishing games, whereas Ben's doing it at the end of Test matches, and there's not, probably not many, many players through the history of the game that have found themselves in that sort of role and are there at the end winning games, and especially as a captain.”

Stokes struck nine fours and nine sixes in his hundred at Lord’s before being dismissed by Josh Hazlewood.

---

“Everyone probably thought he could do it again” - Ponting on Stokes doing a Headingley encore

As Stokes took on Aussies at Lord’s on Day 5, many England fans and critics felt that a repeat of Headingley 2019 could be in the offing.

Ponting agreed:

"I thought and everyone probably thought he could do it again because we've seen it happen before, but this was probably, slightly more runs that they were chasing (in 2019). In the back of the back of everyone's minds, I think once it started playing out the way that it was and how many similarities there were to Headingley in 2019…Steve Smith dropped him…and he was dropped on 116 by Marcus Harris at Headingley, So those sort of ghosts of the past kept coming back out."

Unlike some legendary all-rounders of the past, Stokes’ numbers don’t do justice to his potential. He averages a little over 36 with the bat in Tests and more than 32 with the ball.

Ponting, however, looked beyond the stats and described him as an out-and-out match-winner.

The 48-year-old commented:

"Those numbers alone don't sort of put him in the highest echelon of players. But when you see him play like he did (at Lord’s) and do some of the things he's done for this team over a long period of time, then we have to find ways to start measuring cricketers in a better way of how they impact games, how many games they actually can win themselves because he's an out and out match-winner, that's for sure."

Stokes, 32, has featured in 94 Tests so far, scoring 5928 runs and claiming 197 wickets.