The England skipper took the sarcastic undertone to dodge latest question marks on the famous 'Bazball' tactics with India tour looming.
Even as he relished the highs of winning The Oval Test to level the Ashes 2023 with arch-rivals Australia, Ben Stokes was forced to take a moment out of celebrations and give his thoughts on England’s next major assignment at the highest level: playing a five-Test series in India next February-March.
With that being the litmus test of the ultraggressive ‘Bazball’ tactics on turning pitches against the most robust Indian attack England would’ve ever encountered on these shores, a question mark remains on Stokes & company’s ability to continue their domination in all conditions and every challenge possible.
But when the question was directly posed to Stokes, the skipper decided to give it a funny twist and indirectly took a jibe at those fuelling the ‘can they do it everywhere?’ narrative ever since the ‘Bazball’ first came to being at the start of the previous English summer.
For every looming series, England have had this question mark hovering over their heads and each time so far they have eventually managed to shut their naysayers up.
Since Stokes was joined by Test head coach Brendon McCullum, they’ve managed to reverse a horrific record of one win in the previous 17 Tests. The aggressive duo have inspired 3-0 whitewashes at home versus New Zealand and away in Pakistan and also won over South Africa while pulling off series draws on Kiwi shores and now against Australia at the Ashes. They also dominated a run-chase in their solitary Test match against India at Edgbaston.
Speaking to the press after the triumph at The Oval, Ben Stokes took a sarcastic tone to respond to questions based on ‘Bazball’ versatility and adaptability for Indian shores, with Test matches scheduled for turning pitches against Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja at Rajkot, Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Ranchi and Dharamshala.
“I remember when we beat New Zealand 3-0, (the talk) was we couldn’t do it against South Africa, couldn’t do it against Pakistan, couldn’t do it against Australia. So who knows if we couldn’t do it against India, the time will tell,” Stokes said in an interesting comment with a sarcastic undertone.
Can England play like the Bazball way in India?
Here is what Ben had to say… pic.twitter.com/JStea4EsIk
— Sandipan Banerjee (@im_sandipan) July 31, 2023
At each point, Stokes’ men have been doubted, they have come out firing and reinforced their ‘Bazball’ tactics. As Stokes mentioned, following the 3-0 win last summer versus New Zealand, when the talk revolved around their capabilities to succeed against South Africa, they won the Test series 2-1.
When the team travelled to Pakistan in the winters, they dominated the three-Test series 3-0 and now cameback from successive defeats in Edgbaston and Lord’s to level the series and denied the Aussies.
