Ben Stokes, the England allrounder, has put his name up for next month’s IPL auction in an attempt to use the experience of playing in overseas T20 leagues to expand his game
Arun Venugopal in Pune13-Jan-20173:26
Morgan the driving point of our ODI goal – Stokes
Ben Stokes, the England allrounder, has put his name up for next month’s IPL auction in an attempt to use the experience of playing in overseas T20 leagues to expand his game. Should he land a deal, he will become the third player from the current English side, after captain Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler, to feature in the lucrative eight-team tournament.Stokes’ only tryst with a foreign league came in 2014-15, when he was left out of England’s World Cup squad following a prolonged slump in form, and was instead signed by Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash as a replacement for the injured Jesse Ryder. He made an immediate impact by smashing a 37-ball 77 in his opening match against Hobart Hurricanes, and finished the season as Renegades’ third-highest run-getter with 128 runs from four innings.Stokes’ stock in India soared during last year’s World T20, when he was one of the stars of England’s inspired run to the final (albeit he bore the brunt of Carlos Brathwaite’s unforgettable onslaught in the decisive over in Kolkata), and his aptitude in Asian conditions was again demonstrated before Christmas when he starred with bat and ball in the Tests and ODIs against Bangladesh, before carrying some of that form into an otherwise tough Test series against India.”This year’s IPL is a chance, not just for myself, but a few of the other English guys to go ahead and experience what it’s like. Get a different side of T20 cricket, rather than just play in England,” Stokes said in Pune, in the lead-up to the first ODI against India on Sunday. “I won’t say I am lucky, but in terms of the English summer, it is quite hard to get away and go and experience what it is like to play in these foreign T20 leagues.”Stokes’ enthusiasm for foreign leagues comes at a time when the ECB is keen to launch a high-profile T20 league of its own from 2020. An ECB delegation recently met with Big Bash authorities to study the successful BBL model and absorb the right lessons while, at a playing level, Trevor Bayliss’s tenure as coach has enhanced the sense that white-ball cricket is at last being treated as an equal priority.”It’s one of the things that we want to happen in England… to become like a franchise sort of thing,” Stokes said. “Many of the countries are doing it, so we’re looking forward to seeing if I get a chance to go and see what it’s all about.”Referring to the positive appraisals of players who have been part of the Big Bash or the IPL, Stokes said English players, and as an extension, the team would be better for the experience. “You end up playing against the best players in the world, albeit in T20 cricket. But, look at the guys who’ve gone away and played franchise cricket in Australia and India as well, they’ve all come back and said very, very good things – said it has massively helped their cricket,” he said.”The guys you get to work with as well, not just players but coaches as well. They’ve all come away with really good experience and they’ve all said they think they’ve become better players from doing that. The more chances that we get, I think that is going to do us a world of good.”England have a packed season of white-ball cricket leading up to the Champions Trophy, with three ODIs in the Caribbean in March, a two-match ODI series against Ireland in the first week of May, followed by three ODIs against South Africa. There is also a training camp planned in mid-May. In the event of Stokes securing an IPL contract, he said he was comfortable with being asked to cut short his league commitments to report for the ODIs.”I am an England player. So the decision will get made on what would happen then,” he said. “I’ll just go with whatever… if they feel that it is best for the English guys who go out there to stay over there, then we’ll follow that. And if they want us to come back to represent England, which is what our job is to do, then we’ll come back and have no complaints.”
