After England were carried to victory in the first Test against New Zealand on a wave of positivity, Ben Stokes has pinpointed precisely what they need if they are to win the second: even more positivity than that. “I don’t know how you make positive more positive,” he said, “but I think you get what I mean.”
It is not yet clear whether it is possible to have an excess of positivity – that oft-repeated one-word distillation of the cricketing philosophy espoused by Stokes and the team’s new coach, Brendon McCullum – only that despite securing their first Test victory in nearly 10 months England are not there yet.
“The message from me to everyone is to just be even more positive than we were last week,” Stokes said, “[Let’s] not just be comfortable with where we are. Let’s always look to try and be better. Something I learned in the way that Eoin Morgan captained the one-day team is that he was always looking to be more positive, in defeat or in victory.”
The mindset may still be changing but the personnel for the second Test at Trent Bridge on Friday are not: England have chosen the same XI that started the five-wicket victory at Lord’s last week, for all that Jack Leach was on the field for only the first hour of it before landing on his head while athletically saving a run on the boundary and retiring concussed. In doing so Leach inadvertently became the poster boy for England’s new approach. “Baz made a big point about that in the dressing room,” Stokes said. “I think that filtered through the whole week, just the way that everyone was flying around the field and really committing to stopping every single run possible.”
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It is awkward that Stokes is unable to savour any aspect of his team’s improvement without implying criticism of the previous regime, when the side was captained by his great friend Joe Root. The team’s travails over the last couple of years reflected a maelstrom of issues from coaching to Covid, but the extent to which the new skipper’s conversation is littered with admissions of recently vanquished negativity, failure and unhappiness is telling.
They knocked off their target at Lord’s when “in times gone by chasing 270 in the fourth innings hasn’t gone really well for us”. The bowling, pitched up to improve chances of threatening stumps and edge, reflected “a simple change of mindset, just being positive and looking to take wickets”. Improved catching and fielding demonstrated greater happiness among the players: “The slip cordon’s not been our strongest point over the last couple of years but … when everyone’s enjoying what they’re doing all the simple little things in the field tend to be better.” If everyone can “enjoy their moments of representing England, the results will come and look after themselves”.
If the newly cheerful side passed their first test at Lord’s, Stokes was quietly satisfied that with his captaincy he had done the same. “One thing I always said before starting this was that I’d probably go with my gut more than my brain,” he said. “There were a few occasions when Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell were going [in their second-innings partnership of 195] and I really had to listen to that, because we could have gone really defensive to stop them from scoring. But we didn’t.”
England’s focus now is on trying to end a run of five successive series defeats (one of which, against India, could yet be saved when the delayed final Test is played next month) with a decisive second victory. “Winning the series first time out would obviously be good, but it’s going to be a long road with the way that we’ve changed our mindset and the way we want to play the game,” Stokes said. “I know there’s going to be some ups and some downs. Obviously we’re on a big up after winning last week, but we’re just going to try and take everything as it comes, because who knows what this week will have in store for us?”
The England & Wales Cricket Board, meanwhile, have announced that James Taylor, who spent three years as full-time England men’s selector from 2018 and as head scout fed into the three-man panel that picked the squad for this series, is to leave the organisation. “The time is right for me to explore new opportunities, and I’m excited about what lies ahead,” he said. – Guardian
