Nasser Hussain opens up on Ben Stokes' poor dismissal against India

Former England captain Nasser Hussain has stated that Ben Stokes’ approach was completely wrong against India on Sunday in Lucknow in the ongoing 2023 World Cup. He took his time in the middle after coming to bat at No. 4 but his plan backfired. He failed to read the ball by Mohammed Shami and got out on a 10-ball duck. And, England reduced from 30-0 to 33-3 in pursuit of a modest 230 as well.

In his column for The Daily Mail, Hussain added, “I was on commentary at that time with Eoin Morgan, when Ben Stokes was batting, and that is when we disagreed. Eoin would have tried to hit the ball into the outfield to try to make it wet and harder to bowl with, and that’s exactly what Stokes tried to do.”

He further stated, “It is very rare Ben gets it wrong, and he has been the key man in so many difficult situations in different forms of cricket over the years. But I’m not sure he got it right this time and contributed to England again losing wickets in the powerplay.”

Nasser Hussain again added that the first 10 overs of the innings were important and they needed to stay there to cash in later as well. However, England’s batters failed to make any steady partnership in the middle as Indian pace duo Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah shared seven wickets between them. Alongside them, Kuldeep Yadav also picked up 2 wickets as well.

“What England had to do was come through that tricky five to 10 over period at the start of their innings when the new ball was going to nip around, and then, things would have become easier for them. So, for me, old-fashioned as I am, that was the time when they needed to grind it out and survive that difficult spell you get in any form of the game.”

“Not going to happen” – Nasser Hussain on England’s hope of reaching the semi-finals

Nasser Hussain also urged England to beat Australia on Saturday. He further added that they have no chance of reaching the semi-finals despite not being mathematically out of it yet as well.

“There may be a remote mathematical chance of England still getting to the last four but it’s not going to happen. They are out of this tournament and all they can do now is try to pull this around, beat Australia on Saturday and regain as much pride as possible,” he concluded.