NEWS
Follow UsBen Stokes lost his first series as Test captain but the 32-year-old is “proud” of how Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley have performed in their debut series. The two shared eight wickets between them in the first innings and gave England a lead of 46 runs in the fourth Test in Ranchi. Bashir, in particular, finished with eight wickets but it was still not enough to stop India from registering a five-wicket win on Monday (February 26).
Defending a target of 192, England managed to reduce India to 120/5 but that’s when Shubman Gill and Dhruv Jurel joined hands and shared an unbeaten 72-run stand to take India home. “I think it was a great Test match. If you see the scoreboard, it'll say India won by five wickets, but it doesn't give credit to the way things unfolded, the ebbs and flows on every single day it happened,” said Stokes.
“I can only be proud of my team. We have had some inexperienced spinners, but I'm proud of their efforts, they came here without a lot of exposure, and the way they kept bowling, I can't ask for anything more. Part of my captaincy is allowing the young guys to revel and have the freedom to play in some difficult and intimidating conditions in India.
“I am a massive Test cricket fan. The number of youngsters coming along in both teams sets things up nicely for the future of Test cricket. If you look at yesterday, anything was possible, it was incredibly difficult batting against Indian spinners. Scoring became difficult and so was rotating the strike. We knew the pitch wouldn't get any better, as we saw today.”
After getting a lead of 46 in the first innings, England were bowled out for just 145 in the second essay and that allowed India to bounce back. Something similar happened in the third Test as well, with England handing over the advantage to India after being in a solid position.
Stokes also heaped heavy praise on Bashir and Joe Root. While the offspiner took his maiden five-wicket haul, Root got his first hundred of the series after failing to make an impact in the first three Tests.
“I don't think the criticism of Joe Root has been fair, the sheer amount of cricket he has played, got 12000 Test runs. He's incredible. So is Bashir, what a story, what a journey, taking eight wickets, including a five-fer against India after having hardly played a lot of cricket is superb.
“You want to win series, you want to play and win cricket matches. I've been here for a couple of years (as captain) and my message is simple. The only thing I can say is we left nothing on the field, we've fought hard and I'm happy with that.”
