I would swap my 2019 success for father's good health, says Ben Stokes

Ben Stokes was the biggest hero of England’s historic 2019. In a year when England finally ended their decades-old wait for the World Cup, the allrounder proved his worth by producing a stunning performance at the tournament. He scored 465 runs with the help of five fifties including one in the final against New Zealand.

He guided England from a disastrous 68 for four to a tie at 241 with a score of 84 not out in the final before stepping to the crease again to score eight more crucial runs in the super over. He also picked up seven wickets with his handy medium pace as England finally laid their hands on the coveted trophy. Just a few weeks later, he proved his worth again in the Ashes.

In the third Ashes Test, he scored a stunning 135 as England registered a miraculous win by chasing down an improbable target of 356. 74 of those runs came for the final-wicket partnership with Jack Leach in which the spinner scored only one run. Stokes’ knock helped England remain alive in the series and eventually draw the series 2-2.

Things then only became better for him as he was named the BBC Sports Personality of the Year last month. The England allrounder became the first cricketer to win the prize since Andrew Flintoff in 2005. No surprises then that 2019 was just an unforgettable year for Ben Stokes. But unlike 2019, 2020 has not started on a good note for the allrounder as his father is in hospital after falling ill.

Ben Stokes had an unforgetful 2019

2019 has firmly put Ben Stokes in England’s cricket folklore. However, the allrounder has said that he is ready to swap the World Cup glory and BBC Sports Personality of the Year award to see his father out of hospital in South Africa. His father, Ged, fell seriously ill on his trip to South Africa and was admitted to a hospital in Johannesburg on December 23.

Stokes had to skip training in the lead up to the Boxing Day Test against South Africa due to his father’s critical condition. Fortunately, Ben Stokes’s father was shifted out of the Intensive Care Unit on December 29. But Stokes said that there is still a long way to go when it comes to his father achieving 100 per cent health.

“At the end of the most memorable of years I am finding it quite hard to sum up 2019 right now. There has been some unbelievable highs, and some real lows, but to see out the year with my dad in hospital has put things into perspective,” Ben Stokes wrote in a column for the Daily Mirror.

“If someone could say I’ll take everything away from you that happened this summer, but your dad is happy, healthy and watching you play cricket’, then I’d say yeah, swap it. Thankfully where he is now to where he was when he went in has been an unbelievable turnaround, but he’s got a way to go. The care that he has had while we’ve been here has been absolutely fantastic,” he added.

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