Australian captain Tim Paine has questioned whether Ben Stokes’ first-innings declaration in the recently concluded first Ashes Test had a touch of ego.
During an interview on the SEN podcast ‘Whateley’, Paine was asked whether England can add some nuance to their ‘Bazball’ approach. The former Australian skipper recalled Brendon McCullum and Stokes saying after an earlier loss to South Africa that they would prefer to go over the top to find how far they can take it before they learn to bring it back. However, he was critical of the England skipper’s first-innings declaration:
I think they will over time. It’s going to be fascinating. I do wonder sometimes when you have got a Brendon McCullum and a Ben Stokes, who are so aggressive, who is in the change room challenging that decision to declare on Day 1?
Stokes declared England’s first innings at 393/8 on Day 1 of the Edgbaston Test, with Joe Root on an unbeaten 118 at the crease. The move backfired in the end as the hosts eventually lost the Test by two wickets to go 1-0 down to Australia in the five-match series.
Stokes wanted to put the Australian openers under pressure by declaring a few overs before Stumps on Day 1. However, the move did not yield the desired results as David Warner and Usman Khawaja batted out the four overs they faced without getting separated.
Paine added:
Are people going to stand up and say that we playing entertaining cricket, that’s fantastic, but the best batter in the world is 120 not out at the moment, he was scoring at 5.50 an over, it wasn’t like the game was treading water, it was moving and moving quickly in their favor. So I wonder how much of that is a little bit of ego taking over and this is the way we are going to play.
As a seasoned captain, Paine knows what it takes to win big matches From an English perspective, when you saw Joe Root get out like he did in the second innings, you probably are very disappointed because he did have the game under control, Paine reckons English fans would have been disappointed with Joe Root’s second-innings dismissal.
He had taken the risk that he had to take earlier to get the fields where he needed them and he just needed to bat for another hour and a bit and they would have killed the game.
Paine concluded by stating that while he loves watching England’s style of play, he would question some of the decisions they made around their strategy as well as their ability to go through the gears if and when needed.
