India vs England: Was Ben Stokes being delusional when he said England ‘progressed so much’ despite 3-1 series loss to India?

Skipper Ben Stokes had an interesting exchange with an Indian reporter on eve of the final Test of the series that England have already lost. Stokes was first praised for his leadership and this was followed by a question about rival Indian captain Rohit Sharma outsmarting his team.

The man credited with changing the course of England cricket remained non-committal, later he even went on to say that he wasn’t really disappointed about the result of the series. England would have lost but like always the Bazballer-in-Chief was blindingly staring at the positives. But first the back and forth involving Stokes.

Q: Rohit outsmarted your entire team?

A: I will let you decide.

Q: But it could be 4-0 …

A: I will let you write what you write, that’s fine.

Q: Everyone is talking about your leadership …

A: I don’t ask people to talk about me.

Just before this snappy rapid fire round, Stokes was asked if he was disappointed that England had failed to keep the momentum after the first Test win at Hyderabad. This despite India missing several of their top stars like Virat Kohli and Mohammad Shami. “I think saying that because Virat is not here, some of the best players are not here, is it disappointing? No. I look at how much a lot of individuals have progressed on this tour, and for me as a captain it’s good,” he would say.

Individual and collective progress of his team is something Stokes has lent on most days when he gets asked about the disappointment that defeat brings. Last year after losing the first Ashes Test, he had said something similar. Stokes has been consistent in his stand. After the narrow loss at Edgbaston he had said: “It was obviously very disappointing to lose but if you look at the way we played over the last five days, compared to the way the last few Ashes have gone, then [we showed] we can stand up to Australia.”

Cricket – Fourth Test – India v England – JSCA International Stadium Complex, Ranchi, India – February 26, 2024 England’s Ben Stokes with Joe Root and Ollie Pope during the match REUTERS/Amit Dave

At Dharamshala too he said England had played better than they did when they last visited India. “Yeah there is obviously disappointment because we’ve lost some games which mean we’ve lost the series. We progressed so much on this tour…,” he said.

He also listed the names of Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir and Ollie Pope, those whose performance graph had gone north this time. He would start the answer with a disclaimer: “In a results based business that can sometimes sound stupid and deluded”. And then came the answer. “We were written off completely before we had even played a game in this series. … I’m looking at the progression of the team but also individuals, I am very, very happy as a captain.”

Patient captain

Stokes also came across as a patient captain who wasn’t in a hurry to give up on his players. On this tour, pacer Ollie Robinson hadn’t been able to shine through and had looked out of place. Questions were being asked if the team would rely on the pacer who had a history of breaking down. Stokes was sensitive to the out-of-form pacer’s situation and appreciated his efforts.

“I’m in the position where I get to see all the hard work that goes into players giving themselves the best chance of being on the field. Ollie did everything in his power to put in a match-winning performance last week and unfortunately not everything works out the way we want it to. When you see someone putting in the hard work and showing that desire to not only be physically and mentally fit and something happens to them that is uncontrollable, you can’t really moan about it,” he said.

There was more, he said that his proximity to his players helped him judge them fairly. “It’s not the first time but if someone’s not doing the right things away from what you see on the TV or the field then you can question that. When you see people working as hard as everyone does, it’s very hard to go against that person,” he said.

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All through the press conference he didn’t sound like a captain who had thrown in the towel and was waiting to head home. “At 3-1 you think it’s not been a success but I look at it from a completely different angle … It’s not worked out that way in terms of results but we’ve got one last push here which is great at the end of a long tour. It’s a great ground to do it at and a lot of Barmy Army are coming in to support us this week. So very excited for this week,” he said.

Stokes the captain, regardless of the results, doesn’t sound like a defeated captain. Not even the one who was outsmarted by the rival captain.

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