England’s decision to immediately draft Ben Stokes back into their squad for the marquee Ashes series Down Under hasn’t gone down well with former opener Geoffrey Boycott, who thinks the tourists are expecting too much out of their premier allrounder.
Stokes, who went on an indefinite break near the end of July to resolve his mental health concerns and also a finger injury he had sustained, made a return to the side with the Ashes opener at the Gabba.
There was a great sense of anticipation around Stokes’ comeback, but the cricketer struggled to get going. Stokes looked underfit to resume going through the rigours of Test cricket. He conceded 0 for 65 off his 12 overs in the first-innings and made scores of just 5 & 14 in England’s nine-wicket defeat.
Boycott said England expected Stokes to be their “messiah” when it’s unfair on the player to be rushed back into Test cricket after an elongated break with hardly any cricket under his belt over the last five months.
“Ben Stokes needed to play more cricket. All the hype that he’s back and what he brings to the dressing room is b——-. He is not a messiah.
He can’t bat and bowl for everyone. Ben hasn’t played for five months, had a finger operation and rain ruined his practice. T
hen his first knock was on a testing pitch against, in my view, the two best seam bowlers in the world – Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.”
Boycott wrote in his column for the Telegraph.
Stokes would have hoped to get his preparations right with some red-ball cricket in the build-up to the Ashes, but he was denied the pre-series game time due to the torrential rains in Brisbane ahead of the Gabba fixture.
Both of England’s warm-up fixtures got ruined by bad weather and the likes of Stokes had to mostly make do with the net practice for the first Test. England will hope that the discomfort which Stokes was seen carrying on Day 2 isn’t a cause of any serious injury as they go deeper into the five-Test series.
