England have adopted an ultra-aggressive approach to red-ball cricket under Ben Stokes.
Before the Ashes 2023 opener at Edgbaston, there were plenty of discussions about whether England would continue with their aggressive approach against Australia, which defeated India to win the World Test Championship (WTC) title earlier this month.
As it turned out, the hosts did bat aggressively right from the first ball of the match. Moreover, Stokes shocked one and all by declaring England’s first innings at 393/8 with 12 overs left on Day 1.
Stokes also impressed one and all with his shrewd tactics that helped England bundle out Australia for 386 to take a meagre first-innings lead of 7 runs.
Speaking to ICC, Australian legend Ricky Ponting heaped praise on Ben Stokes’ captaincy, saying: “It’s hard to keep up with them all, he’s making a change almost every ball, which is great, it’s proactive captaincy. He’s always trying to move the game forward, he’s looking at any little way that he possibly can to pick up a wicket and change the momentum of the game.”
“You don’t see that every day. And that’s a sign of what’s to come, but also a sign of this change of attitude from the current England team,” he added.
Ponting also hailed Stokes and his men’s courage to continue with the ultra-aggressive approach against Australia.
“There was a lot of chat around ‘will Bazball stand up? Are they going to be courageous enough to play that way against the Australians?’,” Ponting said.
“Well, I think that question has been answered for us. It’s certainly there, the way that they want to play, this bold new approach to Test match cricket, trying to make bold decisions at any stage in the game where they can,” he further remarked.
On Day 3, Stokes plotted Usman Khawaja’s dismissal when the Australian opener was batting on 141.
Before Ollie Robinson came in to bowl his third delivery in the 113th over, Stokes lined up Ollie Pope, Harry Brook and James Anderson as three catching covers while Joe Root, Stuart Broad and the England captain himself mirrored them on the off side.
As it turned out, Khawaja fell for the trap. The southpaw came down the track to play a yorker from Robinson on the offside but failed to make contact and ended up getting bowled.
“With Khawaja’s innings, I’d hate to try and count how many times he changed the field for him and how many bowling changes and tactical changes he made to try and get Khawaja out – and then it finally worked,” Ponting said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a field like that in Test cricket before. There was just an umbrella of fielders around in-front of the batsman’s face. And it was all about bowling a couple of slower balls and being able to bowl a yorker. And sure enough, Khawaja used his feet, gave himself some room, gave up his stumps, and the yorker knocked his off stump out of the ground,” he stated.
“It’s fantastic stuff. It’s really refreshing for the Test game to see a team play this way and a captain happy to try everything he possibly can,” he continued.