England’s veteran batter Joe Root showered praise on his captain Ben Stokes after the all-rounder gave his all in the second innings of the Indian innings at Lord’s. Defending 193, Stokes bowled two long spells on the final day, one of 9.2 overs and the other of 10 overs.
The fast bowler returned with figures of 3-48 in 24 overs and accounted for Akash Deep, KL Rahul and Jasprit Bumrah. Furthermore, Stokes bowled 22 overs in the first innings and returned with figures of 2-63. Root revealed that Stokes didn’t even listen to him regarding his workload management when he was the team’s captain.
Joe Root said, as quoted by BBC Sport, “He doesn’t always listen to me. He didn’t listen to me when I was captain. But, no, he knows what he’s doing and he’s got a good handle on where he’s at physically. It was an incredible effort. He’s just desperate to be the man and make things happen. Incredible effort to be able to do that. I was just panicking that he wasn’t going to make it through the game after a couple of bad injuries but he clearly trusts his body now.”
On the other hand, former Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin lauded Ben Stokes and Ravindra Jadeja for giving their all on the final day of the third Test. Jadeja scored a fighting knock of 61 runs off 181 balls, but eventually his efforts went in vain.
“Ben Stokes bowled an unbelievable spell. I was discussing this with my father. He was assured that Siraj would finish it by smashing three sixes. I was asking him to cut down the jokes. Looking at Ben Stokes, he started talking about a bowler from his league games, who used to bowl from both ends,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
“In both spells of 9.2 and 10 overs, he was bowling at 132-140 kph. At one end, you had Jadeja, standing like a fortress, stitching India’s resistance and on the other, you had Stokes doing the same for England,” he added.
The fourth Test match between England and India will be played at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester, from July 23 onwards.
