Ben Stokes knew his hard work had paid off when the cramps kicked in.
Batting five minutes short of five hours to compile a magnificent 128 during the drawn first Test in Rajkot underlined the quest to “tighten” his defence against spin had been successful.
The all-rounder knew it was an area of his game that needed to be addressed and sought assistance from England’s batting coaches - Graham Thorpe and Mark Ramprakash.
1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ for Ben Stokes! That's his fourth in Test cricket & they've all been scored on different continents! 🚀 #INDvENG pic.twitter.com/CrfBjfOVXr
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) November 10, 2016
“I’ve aways known I can hit the big shots,” Stokes said. “It was more about tightening up the other things which don’t come as easy - the defensive side of it and rotating the strike.
“We were doing sessions of not getting out, playing defensively, going forward or back no matter what the ball was, then as the nets progressed we started getting into a few more attacking shots.”
Stokes started honing his defensive technique on his comeback from injury ahead of the ODI series against Pakistan at the back end of the English summer.
The 25-year-old pored over footage, vowed to improve his footwork and not get stuck on the crease. And the rewards were plentiful.
“Putting the hard work into something that I’ve always known and always been told I need to work on, to then go and out and do it against the best bowler in the world in Ashwin and the best team in the world is a good feeling.
“I think that’s probably the best thing that all the hard work I’ve done is showing. It’s good to know I can play the different role that people associate with me. I can stay in there in different conditions and when the spinners do come on.”
An unwanted side-effect of Stokes’ marathon stay at the crease was a nasty bout of cramp when England came out to field on the second day.
The Durham star had to leave the field for treatment, but the diagnosis was a simple one.
“I can’t eat when I’m not out, I don’t know why,” he explained.
“Our physio and doctor were trying to force feed me pretty much. I’ve never been able to do it. I can eat on a bowling day, it’s just when I’m not out, it’s bizarre. It doesn’t help that personally, I don’t like this type of food. I was trying to eat naan bread, daal and rice.”
Stokes acknowledged the opening Test was probably the first time he’d realised how the testing conditions in India make it more difficult for him to excel with both bat and ball.
Especially as an evolving role in the field means he is under instruction to move himself into the firing line whenever the situations demands.
“It’s more of a coaches thing,” he said. “I always get told when the spinners are on and the ball is looking like it’s going to a certain position all the time just get yourself there.
“In the second innings when we needed to take wickets and it started spinning more I went into slip, but when it wasn’t spinning as much and it was pretty easy to manoeuvre the ball through the offside, (Ben Duckett) went into first slip and I went into extra cover.
“I get given responsibility to do that myself now and I’ve got more confidence to do that rather than before when I thought I’d look a bit arrogant if I just said ‘swap’ and it’s come from the coaches as well which is good and the players don’t take any offence.”
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