Before this series began, Stokes said the time off after his January operation had allowed him to iron out unintentional eccentricities that had crept into his bowling.
He watched videos of his match-winning spell against South Africa in Cape Town in 2020 for inspiration.
“There’s so many similarities to that,” said opener Zak Crawley, comparing Stokes at Old Trafford to that day at Newlands when he stood at third slip.
“He was bowling quickly back then. He’s got that pace back now and the way he just gets that away movement from the right-hander, that zip, which is as much as anyone in the world really.
“He’s a proper wicket-taker and he can make things happen and that’s certainly the case when I first came the side back then and he seems to have got that back now, which is a phenomenal effort considering the injuries he’s had.”
As Crawley says, the flow is back.
Stokes has raced in, no longer looking like a man who hurts with every step.
His front-knee brace is rock solid, allowing hip and side to propel his action to find the kick and bounce from the flattest pitches.
The marathon spells were supposed to be banned but bursts of 9.2 overs and 10 overs in last week’s win at Lord’s, where not even his mate from Under-13s Joe Root could take the ball from his hand, were followed by another 10 on the spin here either side of lunch.
The result has not only been a flurry of wickets but a collection of crucial ones.
Akash Deep’s off stump was uprooted at Lord’s to set up the final-day thriller and Jasprit Bumrah bounced out the following day when he and Ravindra Jadeja threatened the improbable.
At Headingley, Stokes dismissed Karun Nair and Shardul Thakur to allow Josh Tongue to mop up the tail. And in Manchester, he saw off his opposite number Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan – the top-scorer in India’s innings – and Washington Sundar, whose partnership with Rishabh Pant was pushing India towards the ascendancy.
Despite not making a fifty in any of his six innings, Stokes has fair claim to being their player of the series.
After this, England’s captain will have another three-and-a-half months off – planned rather than enforced – before the Ashes in Australia, where his Test journey began.
Stokes is wiser these days.
Where team-mate Ian Bell had to pull him away from a confrontation with Brad Haddin 12 years ago – the Australia wicketkeeper took pleasure in a no-ball denying the all-rounder his first wicket – last week it was Stokes stepping in to separate his bowler Brydon Carse from confronting Ravindra Jadeja.
That level-headedness is what England fans must now cling to. They must hope that, as Joe Root suggested last week, Stokes knows his body best and will not push it beyond its limits again.
Because while the talk about England needing Stokes to fulfil his role as a fourth seamer is valid, it also does him a disservice.
The work has paid off. Stokes is no fourth seamer.
These days he is England’s number one.
