Both Bens scored brilliant hundreds with extra meaning as they steered England from a predicament against South Africa to a dominant one. Stokes’s 103 was his first as Test captain and on the same day his Phoenix from the Ashes documentary was released. Foakes’ unbeaten 113 was his first Test hundred at home. “Ben was pretty clear,” Fuchs said. “We can absorb too, this is a difficult phase, let’s make it difficult for them, score where you can, be busy but don’t do anything stupid. “The opportunity to hit for a long time and hang in there was fantastic and then … with the state of the game trying to extend that lead put us in a really strong position. “That’s what you enjoy, being able to contribute to a key phase of the game and he’s a great person to do it with. It takes the pressure off you and when he went from 50 to 100 he kind of ran and put it back on them and let me hit, which was awesome. He has some good things in his life, everyone wants a piece of him. The way he played was very special.” Foakes’ fledgling Test career has been full of bad luck and mishaps, from running into the wall of the Jonny Bairstow-Jos Buttler axis, to losing form, loving the game, slipping in his dressing room. socks and tearing his hamstrings and with Covid in June. His second Test hundred came almost four years after his first – against Sri Lanka at Galle on his Test debut – but only in the 16th Test. Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s action Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “There was just a sense of relief,” he said. “From my first game, I found that hundreds are not easy to come by in Test cricket, so this one for me is very, very special.”
