Ben Stokes enjoying ‘high quality' games between England and India despite draw

Independent

5 days ago

Ben Stokes praised a showing of 'high-quality cricket' between England and India as the fourth Test ended in a draw.
England reached 669 in their first innings before the game fizzled out, with India closing the day on 425 for four.
KL Rahul fell for 90 before Jofra Archer then dismissed Shubman Gill for 103 and Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar both scored tons.
Stokes hailed the quality of the Test, telling Sky Sports: 'I thought Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett's opening partnership was incredibly crucial in the way we could sort of lay the foundations for the game.
'The opening partnership, the way they took the Indian attack on, the rate they were managing to score at it sort of allowed us to go, 'right we're going to try and bat once' and look to hopefully bowl India out.
'It started great yesterday with two wickets in the first over, but it was one of those wickets where if you got in, you felt like you were going to be the one to make the mistake to get out.
'It's been a back-and-forth series so far, we've been throwing punches and India have been throwing punches back at us, it's just been real high-quality cricket – two very good teams.
'Got to give credit to the way India came out here and performed under the pressure they were.'
With the game destined for a draw, the final stages of the match saw India's batters electing against shaking hands with 15 overs left.
Jadeja and Sundar scored hundreds before shaking hands and Stokes revealed he offered to shake with the aim of protecting his bowling attack.
'I think all the hard work was done by India, they both played incredibly well,' Stokes added.
'It got to that point where there was obviously only one result and there was no chance I was going to risk any of my big, fast bowlers for injuries with one more game to go.
'(Liam Dawson) has bowled so many overs this game, his body started to get a little bit tired and cramp up in the legs.
'I wasn't risking any of my frontline bowlers for that last half-an-hour.'
Stokes appeared to be troubled by his left leg and a problem in his right shoulder, and admitted he was 'pretty sore'.
'It's been a big five or six weeks,' he said. 'I'll always try and give everything that I possibly can. Try and run through a brick wall.
'I ask the guys up there to run through a brick wall for the team. I'll always try and do the same to try and lead by example in that sense.
' Bowling, being out in the field all that kind of stuff it is tough work, but pretty sore.'
When asked specifically about his shoulder, he added: 'It's just a workload thing, got through a fair few amount of overs and just everything starts creeping up on you.
'I'll keep trying, keep going. As I always say to all the bowlers, pain is only an emotion.'