Ben Stokes’ poor India series: Nasser Hussain tells England captain and team to ‘look at your game and improve’

England skipper Ben Stokes could only manage 199 runs from five matches at an average of 19.90 in the series against India. Stokes started the series with a 70 in Hyderabad when the side was in trouble. However, as the series went on the form of the skipper declined significantly and the all-rounder struggled to deal with the Indian spinners.

“Ben Stokes had a poor series with the bat. Maybe because he is playing only with the bat. Just look at your own game and improve,” wrote Nasser Hussain in his column for Sky Sports. Ahead of the series, Stokes would have knee surgery which would mean that his contributions with the ball were limited.

Playing as a pure batter the England skipper could not provide any resistance to the collapse of the batting order which was a recurring trend throughout the series. In addition to him, Jonny Bairstow scored 238 runs at an average of 23.8 in the series. The England number five, unlike Stokes who took his time initially, adhered to England’s Bazball approach but did not work.

READ: ‘Fun before winning’: UK media, former cricketers slam Stokes, England after 4-1 Test series defeat to India

Ben Stokes was castled by R. Ashwin in the second innings of the Dharamsala Test.

Focus on individuals

While Joe Root, Ollie Pope, and Ben Fokes had partial success through the tour, the team struggled to post a decent total which would eventually cost them the games and the series afterward. “The batting collapses will be the main issue from this tour. There have been so many occasions where they have got off to decent starts and the middle order has then collapsed,” Hussain would critique the side.

Despite the poor performances from the middle-order, openers Ben Duckett and Zack Crawley gave the side solid starts throughout the series.

“There is too much said and written about Bazball. I have said the other day it is about the individuals. It is about the individual performances in those situations,” he added. “They will look at those collapses and say, ‘what could we have done differently in those positions to make sure it doesn’t happen again?’ because it did happen again.” Hussain concluded.

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