South Africa shocked the England side by defeating them in the first test match in Lords, winning with an innings to spare and 12 runs. On the third day of the first test match, the England side was dismissed for 149 in their second innings, Anrich Nortje bowelled a superb spell by taking three wickets in 10 balls making the life of the batsman more difficult and helping the South African side register their win at Lords with 2 days and an innings to spare.
The New England Skipper Ben stokes and the new coach Brendon McCullum has had a different approach in playing the match with a much more aggressive Batting and bowling setup.
England lost their first test match under the leadership of Ben Stokes and Coach Brendon McCullum, this was the fifth match under their leadership and the England side won all four previous matches under Stokes and McCullum’s guidance.
Stokes is now all set to come back with a banger to silence the critics, the next test is on Thursday and South Africa will try their best to stop the might England side again.
When asked about the criticism he is receiving after the first loss at lord’s the skipper had few words to say “Absolutely not. You know, I look at captains before me and they were always going to get criticized at times about the way that they wanted to play, and that’s just part and parcel of the job. We know well that when we perform to the capabilities that we’re capable of, then we can go out and put on an incredible performance like everybody’s seen in the four games before.”
Ben Stokes concluded by saying “This is absolutely not a wakeup call or anything like that. It was just unfortunate we’re unable to execute in the way that we want to play this week,”
Brendon McCullum replies to a question where he was asked whether the approach taken by the England batters was not effective, he said “I don’t think so. I think they were perhaps a touch timid. We approach the game with a clear mentality about the way we want to play and we want to be the best versions of ourselves. I think we weren’t quite able to attack when the opportunity presented itself. Then we got a couple of balls that got rid of a couple of our best players. That’s cricket. If you have a winner, you’re going to have a loser, and South Africa deserved to win.”
He further added saying it’s not always going to work, as we said at the time, you’ve got to buckle up for the ride. It’s not nice at times like this but we’ll come back strong.”
England will now face South Africa on Thursday and will look to level the series to avoid more humiliation.
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