England may have won the second Test against South Africa in the ongoing four-match series at Centurion and leveled the series 1-1, but things didn’t seem correct on the field. During the third day’s play of the Test match, fast bowler Stuart Broad and all-rounder Ben Stokes were seen in a heated conversation.

Broad has now lifted the lid on what transpired between the two cricketers that left Stokes seething with anger. “We got a wicket and, in the huddle, afterward, I said ‘Boys, I think we can up our standards out here, bowlers can hit the lengths harder, fielders can stop the ones, they’re on top of us with their energy’,” Broad said to dailymail.co.uk.

SA v ENG 2020: "Test cricket should always stay five days," Ben Stokes opines

He further said, “Stokesy went ‘I don’t agree with you.’ Which is great. You don’t want yes men, do you? He said ‘I don’t agree with you, I think we’ve been good’. I said: ‘Fair enough, it’s just my opinion but I don’t think we’ve been very good’. And we had a bit of back and forth like that. I really liked that.”

Later Broad revealed that Stokes had apologized by sending a text message, “A couple of minutes later he walked over and gave me a big fist pump and he even texted me that night saying something like ‘Sorry, mate, for that disagreement.’ There’s no need to say sorry. That’s sport. That’s what it’s about. It’s part of why communication is so strong in this group. The great thing about that was it was just two blokes trying to get England in a better place.”

Stokes played a pivotal role in England’s win in that Test match, which England won by 107 runs.

The final two matches of the four-match series will be played at Port Elizabeth (Jan 16-20) and Johannesburg (Jan 24-28) respectively.

(dailymail.co.uk inputs)