Morgan gets edgy at Malan
BEN STOKES should already be regarded as an all-time great – and that’s coming from a man who is no stranger to the tag.
Sir Garfield Sobers is widely seen as being one of the finest all-rounders ever to play the game.
The Barbadian (below) played 93 Tests and scored over 8,000 runs at an average of 57 for the West Indies.
He also took 235 Test wickets, ets, bowling both left-arm spin and d pace.
And he has seen enough of
Stokes to believe that the 28-year-old is already among the best all- rounders in the history of cricket.
Miracles
“He has pulled off miracles on two or three occasions,” said Sobers, 83. “I think right now, he’s one of the greatest all-rounders ever – right now.
“He just has to keep behaving himself and keep playing his cricket the way he has this summer.
“I’ve watched him a lot and he has a tremendous amount of ability, which he uses in the right way.
“He can play all three formats and he’s equally good at all of them.
“I thought all this before the World Cup and before the Ashes. He is one of those players who gets people on their feet.
“And he’s someone who can play the right innings at the right time.
“Look at that innings in the Ashes at Headingley. Incredible. That will go down as one of the greatest ever played.”
Sobers knows a thing about great innings. He was 21 when he hit a then Test record 365 not out against Pakistan in Jamaica in 1958 – one of his 26 Test tons.
Stokes’s hundred tally currently stands at eight. But it’s not so much the runs he scores as he scores them that Sobers believes sets him apart.
“He’s the sort of guy who can play the situation – he’s the perfect team man,” added Sobers, an ambassador for Barbados Tourism.
“I was someone who always wanted to be part of the action. I wanted to be in t the game, I wanted to influencing what was in happening.
“I think Stokes is the same.
“If you need a wicket you throw h him the ball. If yo you need to sco score runs to win i you the game, you want him to be at the crease.”
The same could be said of England captain
Joe Root. And although
Root had a frustrating
Ashes, Sobers backs him to come good again.
The Windies legend said: “There have been times when Root has looked half the player he was.
“But he will come back. He needs to find that belief again.”
EOIN MORGAN showed his ruthless edge as he delivered a thinly-veiled barb to ton-up hero Dawid Malan.
Malan batted in a recordbreaking partnership of 182 with the skipper – before refusing to take an extrarisky run to the keeper following a final ball bouncer. Morgan said: “If we get guys who are not running off the last ball of the game because they want to get a not out there’s something to address.”
While England posted a record score of 241-3 in Napier, Morgan said he wanted to see his players put the team first and try to squeeze another one wherever possible.
Malan later explained that
fh he mistakenly thought there was actually another over to go and had even asked to change his gloves with one ball to go.
Even so, if the 32-year-old wants to stay in England’s T20 World Cup plans and even break into the firstchoice team he clearly needs to be thinking as sharply as possible to impress Morgan. “He’s played really well and probably the most impressive thing that got him on the tour was those first four or five games,” added Morgan regarding Malan’s six 50-plus scores in nine innings.
“The fact he scored them in Australia and NZ, where the World Cup is being played, with guys who play his style, is important.”