Ben Stokes: England’s win-or-bust mentality is opening sport as much as new followers
Ben Stokes says {that a} random encounter with a non-cricket fan throughout a spa break between Tests has introduced dwelling to him simply how vital and interesting this Ashes sequence is proving to be, and has vowed to proceed to push for victory in any respect prices on this week’s second Test at Lord’s.
Australia’s thrilling two-wicket win at Edgbaston within the sequence opener had left Stokes admitting to being “emotionally beat up” after the competition, an announcement that appeared at odds together with his earlier insistence that England below his management should not a “results-driven team”.
And, with just one aspect in Ashes historical past having beforehand come again from 2-0 all the way down to win 3-2 – Don Bradman’s workforce in 1936-37 – the Lord’s Test would possibly ordinarily really feel like a match that England dare not lose.
Stokes, nevertheless, insisted that he and his gamers are totally unfazed by the prospect of bouncing again to sq. the sequence 1-1, and mentioned that the general public’s enthusiastic response to the workforce’s “Bazball” ways will solely embolden him for the remainder of the marketing campaign.
“I think Baz has now just come to terms that it’s a thing now,” Stokes mentioned at Lord’s, acknowledging that the Bazball buzzword is right here to remain, regardless of his coach’s previous protestations.
“We got a nice little break, and there’s been lots of people come up to me and saying how enthralled they were with last week,” he added, after a visit to Seaham Hall in Durham, the place he’s an envoy. “They obviously wanted us to win but they just loved every minute of it.
“I had a dialog in a males’s changing-room at a spa concerning the sport, which was a bit awkward. He mentioned, ‘are you the cricketer or do you simply appear to be him?’ and I used to be like ‘it’s me’.
“He just said that ‘I went down to the pub after work and I don’t even follow cricket, but I was just going to go down for a quick few’ and he ended up having a few more, and just said he was just transfixed on the game.
“So whenever you hear stuff like that, it clearly makes you be ok with what we’re doing as bringing a brand new fanbase to the sport, and it is reaching those who it’d by no means have reached earlier than, so that is what we’re about.”
The onus on opening the game up to a wider audience feels all the more important following the overnight publication of the long-awaited ICEC report into the sport’s structural inequalities.
Stokes opened his press convention with a pre-prepared statement on the matter, and later added: “We’re all about rising the sport and simply making it greater than what it’s proper now, and I feel we have managed to realize that fairly nicely.”
England’s plans for the Lord’s Test suffered a pair of set-backs on Tuesday morning, with Moeen Ali deemed unfit for selection after his finger injury at Edgbaston, and Mark Wood omitted in favour of Josh Tongue, with Stokes admitting that Wood wanted longer to be able to play a full half within the third Test at Headingley.
However, Stokes insisted that the selection issues had done nothing to dent the overriding feeling of optimism within the squad, adding that Zak Crawley had addressed the team huddle on Monday with an “unbelievable speech” that referenced an ancient Chinese story a couple of farmer, his horse, a damaged leg and an invading military.
“It was mainly about ‘we’ll see’, one factor occurs and may not imply it is the tip of the tip of the world,” Stokes said. “You do not know why issues occur, if it is for an excellent motive or not, it is simply a type of issues to cope with. The workforce we have picked, I’m very assured we will stroll away from right here with a win. Rather than fear about issues that I haven’t got, I’d reasonably be assured within the issues I do have.
“I don’t want to get misheard when I say we aren’t a results-driven team,” Stokes added. “As I said last week, losing sucks. We always want to win every game we play, but if we don’t come away with the win at the end, then let’s move onto the next game and let’s keep going.”