Ben Stokes’ epic Leeds knock leaves American singer Taylor Swift behind on Internet search

England all-rounder Ben Stokes is on a roll in 2019. He played a key role in his team’s winning its maiden 50-over World Cup at Lord’s last month. And last Sunday, the 28-year-old scripted another historic knock to help England level the ongoing Ashes 1-1 with two more games to go.

Besides the English fans, the entire cricketing fraternity felt ecstatic by Stokes’ 135 not out that gave England a miraculous one-wicket victory despite getting all out for 67 in the first innings. Stokes added 76 invaluable runs with No.11 Jack Leach to take the hosts to glory.

What made Stokes’ knock even more special is the fact that it broke the Internet. Even for a while, the southpaw’s knock was searched more on Wikipedia than American singer Taylor Swift. The International Cricket Council (ICC) posted on Twitter data to confirm Stokes’ higher popularity than the 29-year-old singer-songwriter Swift on Wiki search.

The international cricket-governing body even took a funny dig at the American singer saying, “There’s no Bad Blood here Tay (Taylor Swift), but Stoksey’s (Ben Stokes) knock was the greatest Love Story of all time.” Swift recently released her seventh studio album ‘Lover’ and it was in race with Stokes’ innings on the search list.

For a moment, Ben Stokes was a more popular search than Taylor Swift!

There’s no Bad Blood here Tay but Stokesy’s knock was the greatest Love Story. A Gorgeous innings we couldn’t believe in our Wildest Dreams! Shake It Off, your wiki page is Out Of The Woods ????

???? @chartrdaily pic.twitter.com/2lQNccGoVL

— ICC (@ICC) August 28, 2019

Stokes reaches his career-best ICC rank in Tests

Personally, too, Stokes made some gains after his match-winning knock. He saw his ranking in Tests reaching the second spot in the list of all-rounders. This is his career-best elevation, bettering the No.3 rank that he had occupied in September 2017. Stokes claimed his second consecutive man of the match award at Leeds after Lord’s where too he hit a hundred but the game ended in a draw. Australia had won the first match by 251 runs.

The English fans will look to see more from the New Zealand-born all-rounder who had some career-threatening events a few years ago. But Stokes has learnt lessons from the experiences and has evolved into a modern-day great for England. The next Test begins at Old Trafford on September 4 and both teams will look to gain an unassailable lead in that match.

Watch: 5 Players who should’ve retired after 2019 World Cup but didn’t