DHARAMSALA: Ben Stokes sat inside the ground floor media conference hall at the JSCA Stadium in Ranchi. As a captain, he had just lost a Test series for the first time since taking over in mid-2022. The ten-minute-long interaction started with the admission of disappointment about the defeat, but it did not take long to trail towards a familiar trend that one could see through this series.
There was praise for Indian spinners, the challenges of facing them, a promise of the future in Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir and some updates on the fitness of a few players. By and large, most of the interaction was Stokes talking about the environment, enjoying the game and having fun — the routine positive reinforcement and backing of players — how England competed and pushed India (which they did) and the fact that there will be a lot more series to be won in the future.
This phenomenon is not new if you have closely followed the series and England interactions. There has been a conscious effort, to keep that bubble intact and happy, especially on the away tour, to get the best out of their players. Truth be told, it has worked to a certain extent. However, amidst all the positivity, the one question, and perhaps the most important one, that did not come up was how Stokes has fared as a player throughout this tour.
Playing largely as a batter because of his injury, the England captain’s numbers read — 8 innings, 197 runs at 24.6 average and 56.12 strike rate. To put this into context, among the top six England batters only Jonny Bairstow has done worse. Stokes has essentially been his team’s fifth-best batter and that tally is largely inflated because of his knocks in Hyderabad. He has not scored a fifty since, and one of the 40s — his 47 in Visakhapatnam — came when Stokes was in his strong, batting with the lower order.
It does not take long to understand how well he bats whilst batting with lower order. Stokes, in his career, has had 64 stands with the lower-order (7-10) and 14 of them (21.8 percent) are above 40 runs. In fact, on most occasions, he starts really slow — unlike other batters under his captaincy — and only opens up when the options are limited. In Vizag, too, he was at 19 from 33 balls when England lost their seventh wicket. It was only after he took on the bowlers to pick up some boundaries.
UK-based Cricket Strategist & Recruitment Analyst Dan Weston believes that it is inherent to Stokes’ game plan as he often starts slower across formats. “At the same time, at some level when you're batting with the tail, your options become very limited. Which, kind of, makes your game plan a lot simpler,” says Weston who runs Sports Analytics Advantage.
“So once you're set, you see the ball well, and you're clear about your responsibilities as well. It takes a lot out of the situation. It makes it easier to plan in those situations whereas batting with Joe Root or someone like that. And it's a different situation because it's a bit earlier, you've got players to come, you make different decisions and the tempo building might be a little bit more variable,” he adds.
Problem of perception
Since Stokes took over, or rather Bazball began, England has taken a more proactive approach with the bat. Among the top six, Stokes has the lowest strike rate of 67 and the lowest average of 35.8, which brings attention to the perception problem. Stokes, every time he walks in, comes in with the reputation of having the ability to take the game away. He has done the same, on occasions, especially while batting with lower order. And because of what he has done, every time he walks in, teams are wary of him and would not want him to stay in the crease for longer.
“It probably weighs a little bit on the opposition team. They think in their head, all right, we've got to get him out. Now. We've got to make sure he doesn't score out because he's got this reputation and stuff’. I mean, it's hard for me to say. Ultimately you look at his numbers and you think he's a good player, not a great player, which makes me think that he's probably a player who plays great innings rather than a great player. But, I think the human mind plays tricks on people a lot. They really do believe that notable things happen more often than they do because you always remember the crazy finishes to games and stuff like that and you don't remember the games in which people win easily or lose easily or whatever it might be. It just unremarkable,” Weston explains.
In this series, Stokes has clearly not been able to make an impact with the bat, often looking like he didn’t understand what was happening, especially against spinners. At this point, it is fair to say that despite being able to create a positive environment and better contributions from his players, the England captain’s performance throws light on his inconsistency with the bat. “I think this series completely illustrates Stokes as a batter in Test cricket. He’s capable of playing an outstanding, and potentially match-winning innings, but there’s also a reason - inconsistency - as to why he’s averaging barely over 35 in Tests,” says Weston.
Will he be able to play one of those potentially match-winning innings that stays in memory at Dharamsala? We will know over the next few days.