Ben Stokes lost his first his first Test series. In fact, under his leadership, England played an attacking brand of cricket and won 10 out of the first 11 Tests. But they haven’t won a series of late, drawing 1-1 with New Zealand and 2-2 with Australia before recently going down 4-1 to India.
Former Australia captain Ian Chappell believes Ben Stokes’ aggressive style of captaincy faltered at a crucial time in the fourth Test at Ranchi, which in turn propelled India to win the match and grab the series in their favour.
“Rohit Sharma and Ben Stokes have waged an intriguing captaincy battle in their Test series. However, Stokes’ aggressive leadership faltered at a crucial time and India – well led by Rohit – claimed the series with a resounding victory in the fourth Test in Ranchi.
“On the third evening Stokes desperately needed to start India’s chase with his best two bowlers and try to claim at least one wicket. Incredibly, he gave the ball to a part-timer, Joe Root, and ignored the experienced, probing bowling of Jimmy Anderson. India took full advantage and scored an invaluable 40 runs off just eight overs.
“Stokes missed a trick in Ranchi. He then compounded his error by allowing too many easy singles on the final day by resorting to some cautious field placings. At a time when Stokes needed to be extremely brave as captain and hope he got lucky, he was abnormally conservative,” wrote Chappell in his column for ESPNCricinfo.
Chappell also felt Stokes providing India easy singles in the chase, led by an unbeaten 72-run stand between Shubman Gill and Dhruv Jurel after an 84-run opening stand between captain Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal, made the task of winning an easy one for the hosts’.
“Stokes missed a trick in Ranchi. He then compounded his error by allowing too many easy singles on the final day by resorting to some cautious field placings. At a time when Stokes needed to be extremely brave as captain and hope he got lucky, he was abnormally conservative.
