England have not won a series for 18 months and are rock bottom of the World Test Championship but Ben Stokes was in a positive mood on Tuesday thanks to a five-month break that has given him time to think about the next phase of his captaincy.
England last played a Test match in March, when they lost the series in India 4-1 despite winning the first game, but have a chance to move back up the rankings against West Indies and Sri Lanka this summer.
“I won’t lie, those last four matches in India were incredibly disappointing but I’m not done yet,” Stokes said, as his side prepared to face West Indies at Lord’s on Wednesday. “There’s so much that goes into winning a Test match. If we play to our capabilities we have given ourselves the best chance of winning that game. Staying true to us as a team, trying to put the opposition under pressure, knowing that we will have pressure put back on us, and how we deal with it. That is what we have a better understanding of now.
“When the opposition may be on top, how do we handle that pressure? Getting through that and putting it back onto them. That’s something we have a much better understanding of now as a team. Sometimes it takes a hiccup to say: ‘If this is going to happen again, how do we handle that?’ But it’s also knowing that we need to put pressure back onto the opposition, not being very defensive [instead of] taking a backward step and letting them dictate terms. When we are putting pressure back on opposition, that is when we feel as individuals and as a team our mindset is so much clearer.
“When you have a lot of time off you’ve got a lot of time to think about how you can take the team forward. I’ve been captain for two years so now it’s about progressing this team. We’ve been very focused on the here and now. I want to be able to push this team as far as they can go, not only as a team but also as individuals.”
Advertisement
For Stokes, results are not the be-all and end-all. Entertainment, fun and being in the moment are his main mantras but there is a ruthless streak too and a focus on forward planning. He acknowledged that the departing James Anderson is “the best” and that there is no doubt he is still world class, but said that the decision to force his retirement was about looking ahead and balancing the need for immediate results with planning how to seize the holy grail of winning an Ashes series in Australia.
“Look at where we’ve got to go in 18 months, to Australia. We want to win that urn back,” Stokes, 33, said. “We’ve got an incredibly talented group of fast bowlers coming through so giving them the experience of playing international cricket and getting Test matches under their belt will put us in a much stronger position to go out and win the Ashes.”
It is a huge relief for England given the inexperience of that new crop of bowlers and for the all-round balance of the side that Stokes’s knee issues are behind him, and his return to being a full all-rounder will help with life after Anderson.
“I can play that full role that I had been doing over the first eight to ten years of my career,” he said. “The last two years have been tough with the knee problems but I’ve done everything right to get myself to where I am now and I’m very excited to be able to go out on the park and not have to worry about how things are going to feel with my body.”
Advertisement
This week will bring debuts for Surrey’s Jamie Smith — who will keep wicket — and Gus Atkinson, with a debut on English soil for the spinner Shoaib Bashir. Stokes believes that despite their relative inexperience in the county game (Smith does not keep wicket for Surrey and bats at No5 but will bat at No7 for England, while Bashir has only played a handful of first-class matches), they are a key part of future planning.
“We’re very very excited by what Jamie Smith can offer in this team. He fits perfectly with everything that we want and he’s deserved his place by runs alone,” Stokes said. Of Bashir, he added: “When you’re picking a squad and you’ve got one spinner, we had to make the decision on what we thought offered us the most amount of variety. Bash is 6ft 4in and he’s got a lot of individual traits that we feel that we can bring out. He has a very high ceiling.”
This week will be a challenge for both of them: there are particular difficulties with bowling and keeping wicket at Lord’s because of the infamous slope. Bashir has never played at Lord’s before and Smith has only ever kept there for Surrey in T20 Blast matches. Atkinson has never bowled with the red ball at Lord’s but Stokes was steadfast in his belief that they must be thrown in at the deep end — and that, as captain, he had to make the difficult call to move on from the 41-year old Anderson.
“There’s always going to be decisions that are hard to make,” he said. “But that’s a responsibility that you take on as captain or as a leader. You sometimes have to put your personal relationships and things to the side. The thing I’ll always make my decisions around is what I think is best for the team.”
It is a decision that Andrew Strauss agrees with. The former England captain, opening batsman and latterly director of cricket believes that the next Ashes is too far away for his old team-mate to participate in but that Anderson deserves a knighthood for his long and prestigious career.
Advertisement
Strauss, talking to promote the Ruth Strauss Foundation — which was set up after his wife, Ruth, died from non-smoking related lung cancer and which will have its annual Red for Ruth fundraising day at Lord’s on Thursday — said he can accept that this was the “right time” for Anderson to be moved on.
“There’s a ticking clock until the next Ashes, it is 18 Tests away and at some stage they do need to juggle the needs of the future,” Strauss said. “It’s tremendous that he has an opportunity to feel the love and appreciation for 22 years of service and any fast bowler who plays 188 Tests deserves a knighthood.”
England v West Indies
First Test, Lord’s
Starts Wednesday, 11am
TV Sky Sports
