It’s been a very positive journey since the World Cup: Ben Stokes

Placed in Group A with Bangladesh, Australia and New Zealand, England were the runners-up to India in the previous edition in 2013, also hosted by them. Since then a lot has passed, including a group stage exit in the 2015 World Cup. But England completely revamped their cricket after that disastrous tournament of 2015 and came back stronger.  The new-look England, along with India, is the most in-form team going in the Champions Trophy 2017.

After their embarrassing exit from 2015 World Cup, England brought about a total turnaround as in its attitude towards limited overs cricket. A new set of players were picked, who proved to be more befitting for the shorter versions. Under the leadership of Eoin Morgan, the ODI side switched their attitude in and transformed itself into a group of fearless match-winners to become one of the most dangerous sides in world cricket.

“It’s been a very positive journey since the World Cup,” said Ben Stokes. “Obviously we are doing some things right considering our consistency since then. It’s a great group to be a part of. We really enjoy each others’ success and everyone’s really driven by putting the performances which affect the team outcome. We know how dangerous a team we are but at the same time, we are very good at keeping our feet on the floor. We just take it game by game, don’t look too far ahead and just play what’s in front of us.” official ICC website quoted Stokes as saying.

Stokes on England missing Woakes

England faced a major setback when their star player Chris Woakes got injured in their opening game. But Stokes feels that his injury proved how strong England actually is even without him.

“Obviously Woakesy is a big miss for us but this proves how strong we are at the moment – that someone with the skill level of Woakesy misses out and someone else can come in and be very effective. It’s an exciting time for English cricket and I’m excited to be part of it as a player.”