Ahmedabad: England star all-rounder Ben Stokes believes that the fifth T20I of the series against India is no less than a world stage final, insisting that it is great as the pressure situations will ‘benefit’ England from the loss to India on Thursday.
“Whoever wins that game wins the series so you know that’s great for us as a team, and especially with the T20 World Cup coming up, the more pressure situations we get into as a team, the more we will benefit from it,” Stokes said during the post-match interaction on Thursday.
Stokes, who scored a quickfire 46 off just 23 balls, he and captain Morgan were dismissed off consecutive Shardul Thakur deliveries at the start of the 17th over. The 29-year-old believes that this loss will immensely benefit if they could win the last T20I overcoming high pressure against India.
“The more pressure that we get under as a team, the more that’s going to do for us in that World Cup, because World Cups can end very quickly. Every game is a big game. It is a final because if we don’t win then we lose a series and we don’t want to lose series, we want to win and we want to make a habit of winning them. The more situations we get put into where we’ve got pressure on us and we keep prevailing, that’s just going to do us good,” he added.
Ben Stokes wasn’t involved much in action during the first three games, however, on Tuesday, after taking a wicket with the ball, the left-hander almost took his side home in a big run chase.
“It’s always frustrating getting out, and even more when you feel like you’ve got the game in your hands. You’ve got to look at these things and assess them and learn from them. We’ve got the T20 World Cup coming up and we will be put in a similar position at some point in the tournament. These are all great learning experiences for us as players,” he concluded.
