David Warner's chirps was personal motivation behind Headingley heroics, reveals Ben Stokes

David Warner's chirps was personal motivation behind Headingley heroics, reveals Ben Stokes

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England all-rounder Ben Stokes has gone on to reveal that “a chirpy David Warner” motivated him to step up in Headingley and pull off the miraculous victory during the Ashes. In his new book “On Fire”, Stokes revealed that shaking hands with Warner after the win was the most satisfactory thing ever.

The year 2019 has been a remarkable year for English all-rounder Ben Stokes as he performed two on-field miracles to rescue England out of critical situations in two different matches and that too in different formats of the game. While the first one is obviously the maiden World Cup win of England where he first forced the match into super over and then tied it as England went over the ropes on boundary count, the second time was in Headingley, a couple of weeks after his World Cup heroics, where the star all-rounder snatched the match out of Australia’s hand as England won the Test match by just one wicket.

In his new book “On Fire”, Stokes revealed that Aussie opener David Warner was his prime motivation to take his team home and prevent the visitors from securing the Urn. Stokes scored an impressive 135 off 219 deliveries which made all the difference at the end.

“I had extra personal motivation due to some things that were said to me out on the field on the evening of day three when I was trying to get through to stumps. A few of the Aussies were being quite chirpy, but in particular David Warner seemed to have his heart set on disrupting me,” Stokes revealed in an extract published in the Daily Mirror.

“He just wouldn’t shut up for most of my time out there. I could accept it from just about any other opponent. Truly. Not from him, though. The changed man he was adamant he’d become, the one that hardly said boo to a goose and even went as far as claiming he had been re-nicknamed ‘Humble’ by his Australia teammates, had disappeared," Stokes added.

“Maybe his lack of form in his new guise had persuaded him that he needed to get the bull back."

Stokes also went to comment that Warner’s frustration of his red ball misery after an impressive World Cup campaign is what made him so vocal on the field. As the Durham lad shared his mental dynamics during the knock, he also expressed that shaking the Aussie opener’s hand after the win gave him a great sense of satisfaction.

“Although he’d enjoyed a prolific World Cup campaign, he had struggled with the bat at the start of the Ashes and was perhaps turning to his old ways to try to get the best out of himself. The nice-guy act had done nothing for his runs column," said Stokes.

“I muttered ‘Bloody Warner’ a few times as I was getting changed. The more time passed, the more it spurred me on. All kinds of ideas of what I might say to him at the end of the game went through my head. In the end, I vowed to do nothing other than shake his hand and say “Well done” if I could manufacture the situation.

“You always shake the hands of every member of the opposing team at the end of a match. But this one would give me the greatest sense of satisfaction."

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