England Test captain Ben Stokes feels every Test match is as important as any other red-ball game, and says he doesn’t feel too special about playing his 100th Test match against India at the Saurashtra cricket stadium in Rajkot. His English entourage will leave for the third Test with the aim of leaving for Ranchi with a 2-1 lead in the 5-match series.
It will be a special day for Ben Stokes on the first day in Rajkot, although he won’t feel like the most special person in the world when he takes part in his 100th red-ball match. The left-handed batsman, who plays only as a specialist batsman in the series, has been among England’s best performers in the series, which has been nothing short of a spectacle so far.
The 32-year-old is on his first red-ball tour of India since taking over the captaincy from Joe Root and partnering the former New Zealand captain. Brendon McCullum who took over as head coach a couple of years ago. The duo have since transformed the Test team with the term they coined as Bazball style of cricket.
Not only Ben Stokes, the captain, but also the Bazball is on his maiden tour of the Indian conditions and his first deployment here has been quite decent. While it has worked wonders for batsmen like Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope and Stokes himself, the likes of Johnny Bairstow and Joe Root, who have been a proven batsman in India, have struggled to find their rhythm and form so far. That will be something McCullum would have addressed after the second test.
If those two batsmen start clicking, then England’s batting order will become even more lethal and Bazball will prove to be even more intensive for the Indians to handle. While that remains to be seen tomorrow, Ben Stokes feels that he is more than grateful for the opportunities he has had and that playing 100 or 200 Test matches makes no difference.
“Each test is as important as the next. Then there is the next one, which will be 101; It’s just one more. It’s a sign of longevity, but 99, 100 or 101 doesn’t make much difference. It’s just a number. “I don’t want to sound like I’m not grateful for the opportunities I’ve had, but with milestones, it’s not done until it’s done,” Stokes told the BBC.
Check out Ben Stokes led England playing XI for the 3rd Rajkot Test
Meanwhile, the English Cricket Board has announced England’s XI a day before the start of the third Test in Rajkot. The Three Lions made just one change as Ben Stokes’ side brought in an extra pacer instead of their strategy of using all spinners, as they did in the second Test loss in Vizag.
Mark Wood replaced Shoaib Bashir and that is the only change to the England XI.
Playing XI: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (C), Ben Foakes, Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Mark Wood and James Anderson.