{"id":43689,"date":"2025-08-04T20:54:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/43689\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T20:54:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:54:12","slug":"ben-stokes-hails-chris-woakes-one-armed-effort-in-dramatic-defeat-to-india-england-v-india-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/43689\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Stokes hails Chris Woakes\u2019 one-armed effort in dramatic defeat to India | England v India 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Stokes paid tribute to the \u00adbravery of Chris Woakes as a series during which players battled at various stages through broken feet and \u00adshattered fingers ended with a one\u2011armed man at the crease, his other arm in a sling, enduring \u00adobvious agony as England fell seven runs\u00a0short<\/a> of victory.<\/p>\n

Stokes said: \u201cThat never-say-die, never-back-down attitude we\u2019ve installed in the group nearly paid off. It was never going to be a question for\u00a0him to go out there. He was in a lot of discomfort even running between the wickets.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ve had Rishabh Pant go out to bat with a broken foot, we\u2019ve had Shoaib Bashir bowling, batting and fielding with a broken finger and\u00a0then we had Chris go out there and try and get his team over the line with a quite recently dislocated\u00a0shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore he went out I didn\u2019t get a chance to give him a tap on the back and say: \u2018Go well.\u2019 Coming off it\u2019s obvious what would have been said, just: \u2018Great effort, unbelievable.\u2019 He just shrugged his shoulder and said: \u2018I wouldn\u2019t do anything else.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Stokes, who was ruled out of the game <\/a>with a shoulder injury of his own, pinpointed when Woakes went down on the opening day <\/a>as the moment that decided the match \u2013 \u201cIt\u00a0took, I don\u2019t know, half a \u00adsecond for a shoulder to pop out and \u00adeverything just completely changed for us there\u201d \u2013 but the \u00adcaptain \u00adadmitted that the six catches \u00adEngland dropped \u00adduring India\u2019s \u00adsecond innings had not helped.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could say those chances we put down did cost us, but back to Headingley where we chased down those runs, India dropped quite a few chances and that probably did \u00adcontribute to us winning. Maybe if we did hold on to those chances, things could have been a little bit different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the game ended in defeat in\u00a0the adversity of playing most of it a man down, Stokes felt certain players \u00addemonstrated pre\u00adviously unknown courage. \u201cSome guys will leave this series having found out a lot more about themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn particular, with Woakesy going down early on, the responsibility that fell on Gus \u00adAtkinson, Josh Tongue and Jamie Overton\u2019s shoulders \u2013 their roles \u00adcompletely changed from why they were selected, the impact we thought\u00a0they would have on the game. They had to dig deep. I think a couple of guys have found out more about themselves in a very, very \u00adpositive way.<\/p>\n

The two captains, Ben Stokes (left) and Shubman Gill, shake hands at the trophy presentation. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cThey took that \u00adresponsibility on without adding pressure to \u00adthemselves. They did that in a way of pride \u2013 one of the boys has gone down and we\u2019re going to have to take on that workload. Some people would shy away from that and be worried about what it means for them. They showed a lot of courage, a lot of heart. They can be very proud of the way they threw themselves into that.\u201d<\/p>\n

After an appropriately, brutally tense conclusion on its 25th day the series will be remembered as a \u00adclassic, with Stokes admitting the final scoreline of 2-2 was \u201cprobably fair\u201d. He said: \u201cThere\u2019s that disappointment and frustration, not to have got the result that gives us the series win, but this series has been fantastic to be a part of.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been full of ups and downs, ebbs and flows, throughout every game. India have been in control, we\u2019ve been in control, it\u2019s gone back to them and then it\u2019s come back to us. To be a part of it has been pretty \u00adspecial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is still that\u00a0\u00addisappointment, but for the wider game, and we want to constantly be promoting the game, this series has\u00a0been great.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of his first series as India\u2019s captain, to which he contri\u00adbuted 754 runs and four centuries, Shubman Gill said its \u2013 and his own \u2013 vacillating fortunes had \u00addemonstrated \u201chow the game of life works\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThere are moments like this where you feel the journey is worth it. There\u2019ve been a lot of highs\u00a0and lows and that\u2019s kind of expected in sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time you go into bat you want to perform, you want to score a century, but that\u2019s not how the game of life works. You should be able to navigate through the highs and lows of life and stay balanced. I want to stay balanced whether we\u2019ve won the match, lost the match, I\u2019ve done well or not well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis morning summarised what this team\u2019s all about. The way Brook and Root were going [on Sunday], not many teams in the world would have given themselves a chance, but this team believes that whenever we have an opening we can get through that opening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we were saying once Brook was out \u2013 this was our opening and you never know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Stokes paid tribute to the \u00adbravery of Chris Woakes as a series during which players battled at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-43689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}