Ben Stokes lauded England and India’s competitive nature in four of the five Tests played thus far. His remarks came after India secured a well-deserved draw in the Manchester Test.
He praised India’s tenacity with the bat in the last few days, despite taking two early knocks in the opening over on day four.
“It was a terrific start yesterday (Day 4) with two wickets in the first over, but it was one of those wickets where if you got in, you knew you’d be the one to make a mistake and be out. So far, the series has been back-and-forth. We’ve been throwing punches, and they’ve been throwing punches back, and it’s been really good cricket. Two really talented teams, and I have to give credit to India for coming out here and performing under such pressure,” Stokes said during the post-match presentation.
They were able to live up to the pressure: Ben Stokes
The English skipper reflected on the dynamic nature of a team’s strategies a captain and their team have to typically adopt to on the final day of a match.
“But you always knew that the quality that India have, if they were able to get themselves in, they were going to be hard to dislodge and they proved that. When you’re bowling on Day 5, you’ve got to move away to different plans, different fields, different ways of trying to generate wickets, different ways of making batters out there in the middle uncomfortable. We threw absolutely everything at them and they were able to live up to the pressure,” added Stokes.
England were in the ascendancy after having India 0/2 in the first over of the visitors’ second innings. However, the Shubman Gill-led team batted brilliantly to deprive England a chance.
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