As defending champions England prepare for the South Africa challenge, some good news is in store for their side.
Test skipper, Ben Stokes has announced that he is fit and will be available for selection for the South Africa game.
Meanwhile, both sides will face off at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium to see who will be able to progress further.
Talking about their performance, England has lost two and won one game out of three games.
Meanwhile, South Africa has also won two and lost one and will look to get back to winning ways.
Says Stokes on his selection,
I have worked very hard to get back to where I am and making myself ready to be available for selection.
Adding further, he says,
[I’ll] give it a good push but I think everything is pretty good. I am in a good place.
For England to survive till the semifinals, they must win this game against the Proteas. However, if they lose, it will mean they will have to win all of their remaining games to keep their hopes alive.
Furthermore, head coach Matthew Mott revealed that Stokes talked to the team after their loss to Afghanistan.
Says Stokes further,
We are only three games into a tournament. [We need to] make sure we keep focusing forward.
There is still a long way to go.
It was disappointing in the moment but at the end of the day we have lost a game of cricket in a World Cup.
Everyone is going to lose games and it is one of those things we had to deal with quickly, understand that we didn’t perform well but move on and understand we have a lot more cricket left to play in the tournament.
Meanwhile, Stokes has come out of his retirement just to be able to play the 50-over World Cup once more.
England feels Stokes can turn things around for them once more
Furthermore, he was in England’s squad when they won the 2019 ODI World Cup and the T20 World Cup 2022.
Additionally, he has played many a Test inning to help England out of difficult situations like the 2019 Ashes at Headingley.
But, Stokes says that his return to the side doesn’t mean much to him.
No-one looks to one person in this team to inspire them or anything like that.
It is not a case of if I do come in then all of a sudden we are going to do well.
It is just one of those things that gets spoken about a lot but I don’t read into too much.
Everyone that walks out onto that field for England is a match-winner and can do something individually that can win us a game.
We just need to tone it down a bit on me coming back in.
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