England side led by Ben Stokes defeated West Indies with a margin of 3-0 in the 3-match test series. West Indies were outplayed in all three departments. Ben Stokes the leader, showed immense resilience and smart tactical moves by bringing on the right bowlers at the right time. Giving the Test Cap to Gus Atkinson in the 1st match proved to be a great decision as he scalped a fifer.
James Anderson hung up his boots in the first test match under Ben Stokes’s captaincy. Ben Stokes has been in great form when it comes to his batting. His quick-fire knock of 57 in just 28 balls in the final innings of the final test match was as good as it gets. He took the attack towards the West Indies bowlers and looked to finish it in a hurry.
Mark Butcher born on August 23, 1972, is a former English Test cricket player and commentator. He represented Surrey in county cricket from 1992 until his retirement in 2009. He could bowl off-spin and was a left-handed batsman and a medium-pace, occasionally right-arm bowler. He commented on Ben Stokes & Co. and their performance against West Indies.
Mark Butcher On Ben Stokes & Co. Clean Sweeping WI
After the team defeated the West Indies 3-0 in the Test series, former England batter Mark Butcher thinks the team has improved and shown maturity. Ben Stokes & Co. defeated the opposition by an innings and 114 runs at Lord’s before triumphing 241 runs at Trent Bridge in the second Test match.
England wrapped up the series with a clean sweep by winning the third Test at Edgbaston by ten wickets. Fiery knocks by Ben Stokes and Ben Duckett helped England reach the target in under 8 overs. With this performance Mark Butcher said :
“England have shown refinement and improvement to what they’ve already done and what they were already capable of, and the difference then becomes England can produce that skill and quality over long periods of time.”
“The West Indies are only capable of doing it once a day for maybe an hour and a half, and were then founding wanting when England pushed back at them because they didn’t have the discipline and experience to keep prolonging it,”
Even though legendary pacer James Anderson retired, England managed to produce fast bowler Gus Atkinson and witnessed the peak of Mark Wood’s deadly abilities. It was a wise decision to start Jamie Smith as a wicketkeeper-batter rather than Jonny Bairstow or Ben Foakes. Harry brook proved his mettle by scoring a 100 in this series.
Butcher also believes that England’s players are more battle-hardened for the Test format after examining their errors during the 4-1 series loss to India in which they lost games from winning positions.
“Even though they had a couple of new players in the side and shuffled the pack a bit – obviously there was James Anderson’s retirement and the emotion around that in the first Test – England have got a lot of battle-hardened players in that team right now.”
“They were chastened a little bit over the course of the winter and perhaps looked at ways where they could not give away winning positions or allow teams to come back into Test matches.”
Ben Stokes looks the right person to take England Cricket forward as he is very dynamic in his approach. He and Brendon McCullum have a clear cut method in which England wants to play and it seems to be working at the moment. Next p for England is Sri Lanka, they will be in the UK for 3 test matches starting from 21st August.
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