The England Test team are changing the landscape of Test cricket with their aggressive, win-or-lose-over-draw mentality. This is what many believe and have been hailing the Three Lions long before they defeated Pakistan on a flatter-than-highway Rawalpindi pitch on Monday
It was when Ben Stokes declared England’s second innings giving Pakistan a target of 343 with 4 sessions left, and this was a very gettable total, is when the fans and pundits lauded Stokes’ decision to look for a victory – dangling the carrot for Pakistani batters to play their shots and go after the target – instead of securing a non-chaseable total first.
However, seeing this narrative that Stokes and England are changing the course of Test cricket, reinvigorating life in the oldest format, many Indian fans brought up the point that the Indian Test team under Kohli had been reviving the format long before the Bazball took over.
The Indian Test team under Kohli registered twin Test series wins in Australia, in West Indies and Sri Lanka, and won Test matches in England and South Africa and had made viewing Test cricket more exciting than it had been in the years preceding it.
After the Rawalpindi victory, which came with about 8-10 minutes of bad light away, Ben Stokes said that he and Brendon McCullum – under this pair England have won 6 Tests and lost one with no draws – do not want to play for a draw, but for either a win or a loss. Stokes has been lauded immensely for his comment of “I’ve got no interest in trying to play for a draw, the dressing room has no interest in playing for a draw. Felt on this kind of wicket, almost had to entice the batsmen to play an attacking shot.”
Fans recall Virat Kohli’s strong statement of win-lose over draw from 2015
Amid this euphoria of the praises of the England Test team and Stokes-McCullum, netizens remembered how a similar statement had been made by Virat Kohli when he was in the early years of his Test captaincy.
“Drawing a Test match has to be the last option,” Kohli had said in September 2015, in his first year as India’s full-time Test captain.
Here are tweets on this topic of Kohli-Stokes:
🐐Test Captain said this in 2015 https://t.co/PhwrbUbWIj pic.twitter.com/CKlC7KiNiD
— Aditya (@Adityakrsaha) December 5, 2022
Virat Kohli and Ben Stokes – Test cricket owes a lot to these two.
— Kanav Bali🏏 (@Concussion__Sub) December 5, 2022
Aggressive captaincy supremacy..
Kohli 🤝 Stokes#ENGvPAK #BazBall pic.twitter.com/pxtmIVDzhg— The Cricket Statistician (@CricketSatire) December 5, 2022
*In 2021 – India under Virat Kohli declared innings and bowled out ENG at The Lords within 60 overs on day 5 & won the test match.*
*In 2022 – England under Ben Stokes declared & bowled out PAK in Rawalpindi on day 5 & won the test match.*
one of the greatest test captains pic.twitter.com/Hi9LXFfm5o— Cheeku 2.0 (@God__Vk) December 5, 2022
Ben stokes x Bazz 🤝🏻 Virat Kohli x Shastri
Domination in red ball cricket.#PAKvENG pic.twitter.com/iV9KLY9rTt— Vansh Rajpoot (@VanshR26) December 5, 2022
Ben Stokes 🤝 Kohli the greatest test captain of All Time
That’s how you turn a flat match into a win. What a guy.#PAKvsENG
— Sudhanshu (@sud2rock) December 5, 2022
Virat Kohli in 2014 – playing for a draw is a negative approach. We have to believe in winning the game.
Ben Stokes in 2022 – I’ve no interest in playing for a draw.
A Captain who was unceremoniously ousted! @BCCI
In search of gold we have lost a diamond! 😒— Krishna Ganapathi🇮🇳 (@KrisMrIT) December 5, 2022
What Ben stokes done today, Virat Kohli already done it many times.#PAKvENG
— Flick of Wrist (@flickk_of_Wrist) December 5, 2022
