England captain Ben Stokes has vowed to maintain swinging for the fences towards South Africa, insisting the day has not but arrived to “mellow down”.
Since taking on as Test skipper at the beginning of the summer time Stokes has demanded his facet play a proactive, ultra-aggressive fashion of cricket and has made a degree of main from the entrance.
His dedication to happening the assault has introduced blended outcomes, with a high rating of 75 not out in eight knocks, however an innings defeat by the Proteas at Lord’s final week has not shaken his perception.
The 31-year-old accepts that circumstances might ultimately carry out a extra cautious facet in him, however don’t anticipate to see it within the coming days at Emirates Old Trafford.
“Being the leader, I would never ask my team to do something I wouldn’t. There’s a bigger picture to it, if that makes sense,” he mentioned.
“I’m sure there will come a time when it does have to mellow down a little bit but at this time, right now, I feel I’ve got a big responsibility to be the person hitting that message home. Be brave in everything you do.
“I want people watching going ‘he’s able to go out and do that in a difficult situation’.
“Even when we’re ahead I want to put even more pressure on them, for me that’s what it is.”
England’s remaining web session befell towards a backdrop of a playlist populated by gentle rock and retro pop, seemingly on the prompting of head coach Brendon McCullum, with Stokes giving a certified thumbs up.
“There was a couple of songs where I have to walk over and skip, but there was a real good vibe at training,” he mentioned.
“Sometimes nets can feel empty, lads just running in to bowl and batters batting, but having that stuff on in the background relaxes that mood a bit.
“It gets conversation going. We had nineties stuff on and were asking how Tres (batting coach Marcus Trescothick) would have danced to it in his pomp. It’s a really good environment.”
Stokes adopted a sterner tone when discussing perceived criticisms of his facet, jabbing at those that have taken goal on the heavy method of the Lord’s setback.
Offering a staunch defence of his staff, together with struggling openers Zak Crawley and Alex Lees, he mentioned: “I look again on the primary 5 video games with me in cost, we’ve received 4 and misplaced one.
“We’ve got one of the most destructive middle orders in the world currently right now. We’ve got a spinner (Jack Leach) who’s taken 10 wickets at Headingley.
“For someone who apparently before that was not good enough to be an international spinner, he’s proved people wrong.
“We’ve got Jimmy Anderson and Broady who are ‘dinosaurs’ and they look like they’re enjoying every single minute they’re out there; they’re buying into a new way of playing even though they’ve been through a lot of different eras of cricket.
“We’ve got Ollie Pope who looks everything like a Test number three at the moment.
“Yes, the openers may feel under pressure but the thing I love about those two is even though they do want to be scoring more runs and contributing more, they’re brave enough and are buying into the team ethos.
“Something that I admire very much about those two young men is that they’re able to take themselves away from any sort of individual goals there may be and understand that the goals of the team are a lot bigger than the individual.
“I see nothing but positivity to come out of these five games even though the last game didn’t go well.
“If people can sit back and think about what I’ve just said they might think better about the position.”
Source: www.unbiased.co.uk