Follow Us‘It is about winning. ’
Ben Stokes has sent a clear message, ahead of England’s five-match Test assignment at home, starting June 20 (Friday). After reinventing the wheel of Test cricket, with an uber-aggressive style of cricket, both with the bat and the ball, Stokes has revealed that the Three Lions have identified areas to get better at.
"We have a team identity about how we want to go out there and play the game," Stokes told the BBC. "We've had time to talk as a group, identify areas where we know that we are incredibly strong, but also identify areas that we think we need to get better at. One of those areas was adapting better when we're up against the wall.
"We know that when we are on top of teams, we are very, very good, and where we maybe have let ourselves down in the past over the last three years is when we have been behind the game, we've not given ourselves the best chance of wresting ourselves back into the game, and that's an area that we have looked at and know that we need to get better at if we want to end up being where we want to end up being as a team.
Under Stokes’ leadership, England have played result-oriented cricket, where they have won 20 out of their 32 games, with a 62.5 win percentage. Only one game under Stokes have England drawn, showing how positive their brand of cricket has been. But at the same time, Stokes revealed that this summer, it is all about winning while playing their exciting style of cricket.
"We still want to be known as a team who play an exciting style of cricket," Stokes added. "[It's] not that we never wanted to win every game that we played, but it's changing what we say and how we say it. We want to be playing exciting games of cricket because we know that's what brings the best out of individuals and us as a team. But it's about winning."
England would be looking for their first Test series win against India under Stokes’ leadership, having lost their previous tour 4-1 despite winning the first Test in Hyderabad. The first of the five Tests will be at Headingley, on June 20 (Friday).