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KP on Ben Stokes: “He doesn’t need to lose his head and slog the ball up into the air. He is too good a player for that”; Mark Butcher on Jonny Bairstow: “He is in that zone where he is slowing down time because his decision-making is absolutely laser sharp”Stokes was dropped twice before being caught at mid-off for a skittish 25 on day three of the LV=Insurance fifth Test against India at Edgbaston as he played another entertaining but fleeting knock.The left-hander has fallen in similar fashion throughout the summer, looking to take the game to the opposition as he lives the attacking mantra he and coach Brendon McCullum have championed.Former England batter Pietersen told Sky Sports: “I was watching Stokes in that little passage of play when he ran down the wicket and slogged the ball straight into the air a few times. It was reckless batting, it was not defending your wicket, not protecting the value of your wicket. “Test match hundreds are valuable commodities, they mean a hell of a lot because of the stress, tension, patience and discipline that goes into them. That devaluing of his wicket is something I think may not be a good thing.””I would tell Ben that he doesn’t need to try and prove a point by being ultra-aggressive. The bowler needs to be bowling his best deliveries in order to get Stokes out. At the moment, I see Stokes trying to command authority by running at bowlers. “He doesn’t need to lose his head and slog the ball up into the air when England are in strife. Stokes can stand still and do what Bairstow is doing. I wouldn’t tell him at all not to go after the bowlers but please stand still. He is too good a player to be doing what he is doing.”Stokes hit three fours and was dropped twice in his 36-ball knock at Edgbaston Sky Sports’ Mark Butcher added: “I played under Adam Hollioake [at Surrey] and he would never ask anyone in his team to do something he was unwilling to do himself. “Stokes is trying to lay down a marker and say ‘if I can go out there and give my wicket away, be selfless in pursuit of a team goal, then you can, too’. “My misgiving with that is that, as we saw in that incredible Test innings against Australia at Headingley [in 2019] when he was on about two off 60 balls, Stokes can hold off pressure. “England are going to have to find the line between being hyper-aggressive and taking the game forward, and then sometimes taking a tiny step back, being smart and then piling in again later on.”Bairstow appears to have the balance right, with two centuries at under a run a ball during the 3-0 series sweep of New Zealand and now a ton clinched from 119 deliveries against India. Butcher said: “Bairstow is in that zone where he is slowing down time. The bowling feels like 50 or 60mph to him whereas to everyone else it is 90mph. He is doing that because his decision-making is absolutely laser sharp. “Anything on a good length he is defending but every time the ball moves out of that zone – either short or full – it is disappearing. “He has been discriminatory in that he is able to siphon out the deliveries that are in the danger zone, treating them with respect, and then utterly disrespecting everything else. “That is when you know you are in batting nirvana.”
