Playing his first top-level game since retiring from international cricket, Ben Stokes made an unbeaten hundred as Durham began their One Day Cup campaign with a victory over Derbyshire.
Stokes finished 108 not out, including 10 fours and three sixes, having received treatment several times for cramp during the course of his innings. He collapsed to his back upon reaching his half-century, raising his bat with a smile as he sat up. After a sluggish start, he reached fifty off 71 balls, taking a further 45 balls to bring up his hundred. Durham reached victory five wickets down in the final over, captain Kasey Aldrige seeing his side over the line with an unbeaten 23.
The game marked Stokes’ first competitive fixture since his dramatic retirement from Test cricket, announced on the fourth day of England’s defeat to New Zealand at Trent Bridge. He played a friendly against Northumberland last week, with it having already been confirmed before the season that he would forgo the Hundred.
His work began with the ball, with figures of 0-38 from nine overs. He and former Test teammate Shoaib Bashir crossed paths in both innings, with Stokes bowling an accidental beamer to Bashir in the final over of Derbyshire’s innings, and Bashir completing a tidy spell of 1-56 from his 10 overs. Derbyshire opener Martin Andersson helped push his side to 256-9, but it wasn’t enough as Stokes added another to his list of match-winning performances. The innings also marked his return to 50-over cricket after a lengthy absence, Stokes’ last List A game coming in the 2023 World Cup.
The One-Day Cup kicked off alongside the Hundred, with victories elsewhere for Surrey, Middlesex, Notts, Northants and Hampshire. Stokes has played just five games in the ECB’s flagship white-ball competition since its inception, with injury and a break from the game curtailing his involvement.
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