The list keeps increasing. Yet another cocky, ludicrous, or condensing comment from the England cricket team. James Anderson claimed that they’ll chase 600 in Vizag; Ben Duckett gave Bazball credit for Yashasvi Jaiswal’s aggressive style of play; and now Ben Stokes has said that he was ‘surprised’ by the Dharamshala pitch.
The England skipper did something similar in Ranchi, calling the pitch ‘interesting’. A day before the India vs England 5th Test, while talking with TalkSport, he said:
“To be honest, we’re a little bit, sort of, surprised when we looked at the wicket. We sort of had in our head that it was going to be a three-seam attack. But, yeah, goes to show, you know, preconceived ideas and all kinds of things sometimes isn’t the best thing to do.“
On their team combination changing after seeming the pitch, Ben Stokes said:
“But, yeah, look having the two seamer options with our two spinners, and I think it looks a really, really good wicket. Looks like it might have a bit of pace and carry so obviously that’s why we’ve gone with Woody (Mark Wood).”
England Playing XI
1. Zak Crawley
2. Ben Duckett
3. Ollie Pope
4. Joe Root
5. Jonny Bairstow
6. Ben Stokes (C)
7. Ben Foakes
8. Tom Hartley
9. Mark Wood (replaces Ollie Robinson)
10. James Anderson
11. Shoaib Bashir
