We're a dangerous team, oppositions know it too: Stokes

Since the ICC World Cup 2015, the biggest story in One-Day International cricket has been how England has turned its entire outlook in white-ball cricket around, going from missing out on the quarterfinals of the event then to living up to the pre-tournament favourite tag in the ICC Champions Trophy 2017.

Nothing signified England’s power and depth in the 50-over game better than its 87-run win over New Zealand at the Cardiff Wales Stadium on Tuesday. When there was a slew of middle order wickets, Jos Buttler still carted the ball around as 50 runs came in the last 5.3 overs despite seven wickets being down. When Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor were putting together a partnership that was beginning to threaten, a snorter from Mark Wood sent back New Zealand’s captain, and the bowlers hunted in a pack to induce a collapse.

In many ways, Ben Stokes has been the flag-bearer for ‘new’ England. The talismanic all-rounder can build or explode from No. 5, can bowl a heavy ball and keep running in hard – injury permitting – for all 10 overs, and is a livewire in the field.

Against New Zealand, Stokes hit 48 off 53 and got the important wicket of Martin Guptill. Stokes though, told ICC that England’s entire squad typified the spirit of the team. “I think it’s the easy thing to say that I’m at the forefront,” he smiled. “I don’t necessarily think that you know. I think the whole XI out there are all on the same level and all know what we want to do as a team. You look at how deep we bat, (Liam) Plunkett was in at No. 9 today, so we know that we can just keep going and going because we’ve got very capable batters coming in down the order.”

And this was in a match before which England was dealt a serious blow, thanks to Chris Woakes’s injury. “Exactly,” nodded Stokes. “Obviously Woakesy is a big miss for us but this proves how strong we are at the moment – that someone with the skill level of Woakesy misses out and someone else can come in and be very effective. It’s an exciting time for English cricket and I’m excited to be part of it as a player.

“It’s been a very positive journey since the World Cup,” he added. “Obviously we are doing some things right considering our consistency since then. It’s a great group to be a part of. We really enjoy each others’ success and everyone’s really driven by putting the performances which affect the team outcome. We know how dangerous a team we are but at the same time, we are very good at keeping our feet on the floor. We just take it game by game, don’t look too far ahead and just play what’s in front of us.”

England, Stokes insisted, was wearing its favourite tag lightly, and was a team that was not just well aware of its capacity, but knew that the opposition was aware of it too.

“We know how well we’ve done and we know that if we perform to anywhere near our capability we are going to be a really tough team to beat,” said Stokes. “We know that, and I think other teams know that as well. We don’t put any pressure on ourselves to live up to being the favourites, I think we just earn that right from the way that we played.”

The only point of possible worry is Stokes’s fitness and return from his knee injury. Before the match against New Zealand, captain Eoin Morgan had said his star all-rounder would soon be ready to bowl 10 overs in a match, and Stokes confirmed he was well enough to do so, having bowled eight overs in the 44.2 that New Zealand faced. “I was going to come on until Plunkett got Corey Anderson out, and then we decided to get (Mark) Wood back on to try and blow the tail away,” he said of England’s bowling plans. “So yeah, the knee is good. I think I’m ready to bowl my 10 overs. Just a bit of consistency thing that I need to try and get back.”

On the match itself, Stokes was extremely pleased with England’s performance all-round, and thought a total of 310 was above par for the surface.

“I think we did really well to score 310,” he said. “It was a very difficult pitch to come in and try and hit through the line when you were bowling a good area. It was a little bit up and down, well actually when New Zealand started batting there was a few going up and a few going down. You really just had to wait on anything too short or too full, because if you got the ball in the right area you weren’t too sure what it was going to do.”

While bowling, the only batsman England couldn’t get on top of was Williamson, though the bowlers’ sticking to their plans eventually paid off there too. “We knew that once the shine and lacquer had gone off the ball that cross seamers and wobble seamers were probably going to be the best option for us. With the variable bounce as you saw, a couple went through the top and a few kept low. I think we executed our plans really well.”