JUSTIN LANGER: Ben Stokes’ incredible innings shattered me, but it will never stop me calling him a hero

Heroes are not only born in moments of triumph, but they are forged in the quiet refusal to accept that all is lost, even when the odds are stacked impossibly high.

Whether on a battlefield, in the ordinary trials of a life, or on a sporting ground, we need our heroes because they show us what we might become.

They are proof that courage is a choice, and that the difference between defeat and immortality is often nothing more than the will to keep standing.

So on Monday night I was settled in front of the fire, a glass of red in my hand and not a care in the world.

That’s until I flicked the TV over to the final day of England’s cricket Test against New Zealand.

It was the lunch interval, and the broadcaster was rolling a highlights package that happened to be a replay of the last two days of that famous Ashes Test at Headingley in 2019.

In an instant my relaxed evening was gone.

The memories came flooding back, and with them, everything I have spent years quietly trying to file away were sitting back on the couch with me.

First, they showed England’s cricket star Ben Stokes with the ball. People always remember that match for his batting, but I remember clearly that awe-inspiring spell of bowling where he simply refused to let the game go. He was sublime.

Then came the run chase and the ebb and flow of a Test match that, for the longest time, we were always in front.

We had our noses ahead all game. We had control. The Ashes were in our grasp.

But then came the mistakes, errors that can only ever be seen clearly through the cruel genius of hindsight.

The run out that Nathan Lyon could not quite gather. Our decision making. A panicked umpiring review that cost us in the biggest of ways and still turns my stomach.

Ben Stokes, plumb LBW, two runs required, and no reviews left in our back pocket. I still can’t believe the umpire got it wrong.

Stokes survived.

By the end, he had made 135 not out, alongside the bespectacled Jack Leach, who contributed a solitary run to their last-wicket stand of 76, of which Stokes carved out 75.

He reverse-swept our quicks, launched our spinners into the stands and — somehow — smashed us like it was the last few overs of a T20 game.

Ball by ball, he dragged England across a line they had no right to reach. One wicket. That was the margin. One wicket, after we had spent two days with the match in the palm of our hand.

Sitting on my couch on Monday night I could still feel the silence of our changing room. The pain etched on our players’ faces was overwhelming. Suddenly and sickeningly, we all understood that England then had genuine hope of winning back the Ashes.

I remember that night I sat alone in my room with a scotch in my hand.

My wife rang me on FaceTime and asked what I was doing. “Drinking scotch,” I said. “You don’t drink scotch,” she replied. “I do tonight,” I told her.

There had never been a lower moment in my career — certainly not in my coaching life — than that single afternoon in Leeds.

And it all came down to one man. The same man who retired as a hero from Test cricket on Sunday.

Stokes — like fellow cricket greats Ian Botham, Andrew Flintoff and Shane Warne before him — was never a stranger to controversy away from the field.

But like all those men, his deeds with bat and ball so completely outweighed any indiscretions, that the noise simply faded into the background.

That is the privilege the truly great ones earn. We forgive them for almost anything, because of how they make us feel when it matters most.

Their flaws only make the heroism feel more human. Normal people, doing extraordinary things, make us feel special ourselves.

Watching those highlights (anxiety and depression aside), I felt like the anti-hero was back terrorizing me all over again.

But then I thought of the other side of the coin — the joy, the disbelief, the sheer adulation on the faces of those English supporters packed into the ground that day.

Imagine their changing room set against ours. That is sport, of course. Always a winner and always a loser, separated by inches, thin edges of luck and in our case a missed review.

Stokes lifted an entire country that afternoon, and for that he will never be forgotten.

At the end of that series I did something I have never done before. After a few changing room beers, I quietly borrowed one of the boys’ baggy green caps, planted it on Stokes’ head, threw him over my shoulder and announced to England’s coach Trevor Bayliss that I was taking this one home to Australia with us.

We all fell over laughing but I have said many times since, publicly and privately, that Stokes may not be the best cricketer I have ever laid eyes on, but he is the one player I would always want in my team if I could choose only one.

A fighter on the field and, some might say with a wry smile, off it too, he is skilled, likeable, a man who enjoys a pint and yet trains harder than any cricketer of his generation.

This to me is a combination synonymous with Australia’s greats. Is it any wonder I would have him in Australian colours any day.

Because of this attitude, his players adore him. England star Jos Buttler once told me: “JL, if you ever coached Ben Stokes, he would be your favourite ever player.”

Unfortunately, Stokes has now called time.

In every walk of life, living up to the expectations of heroism is a heavy load to carry.

After announcing his retirement, he spoke honestly about being burned out, about how the long and hard bruising of last summer’s Ashes defeat had scarred him.

That defeat had cut him deep, leaving him with the realisation that he simply did not, in his own words “have any more fight left in me”.

He had hoped a return to Durham might rekindle the old fire. It never quite came back. The expectations, he admitted, had become suffocating in so many aspects of his life.

There is a sadness in that, of course. Yet the more I sat with it this week, the more I felt something closer to gratitude than disappointment that we would never see him in England colours again.

Heroes are not built to last forever; that is precisely what makes the moments they give us matter so much.

Like all the greats, we do not forget our heroes, they live on forever.

It is now 2501 days since that afternoon at Headingley. I counted, because the number felt as though it ought to mean something.

And the remarkable thing is that the date still does mean something. It still conjures every emotion I felt that day: the despair, the disbelief and, strangely, the admiration too.

That is what our heroes do to us. They reach back across the years and make us feel all of it again, as if it is as raw as the first time.

Stokes did exactly that to me on Monday night. From the comfort of my own fireside, glass of red in my hand, his heroics reminded me of what heroes are really made of.

Stokes was a nightmare to coach against, and the very best of what this game of ours can be.