The IPL mania is now over, and it has been replaced by international tournaments which began almost immediately with the end of the IPL. England took on New Zealand first and are now playing the Netherlands, while India faced South Africa in a bilateral series and will be looking forward to touring Ireland under a new team and captain, while the proteas will be preparing for a full-fledged tour of England. One of the English team members who has been keeping extremely busy with national duty is Ben Foakes.
Foakes has his cricketing schedule all tied up. He’s constantly had to bring his team back from dangerous waters and back on track to winning the matches. The wicketkeeper-batsman has been in the spotlight since the test series against New Zealand, as the tail-ender did his job quite up to the mark, making sure that his team got home in the end. The English players were able to snatch the game away from the New Zealand players by chasing down 299 in just 50 overs on the last day of the last test match. This had the English cricketing fans roaring.
Ben Foakes talked about the present scenario of cricketing formats like Test matches. He was of the opinion that Test matches are now slowly turning out to be fun for him. He said that earlier test matches used to be long and exhausting, not just for the players, but also for the fans. Now, though, with the advent of hard hitters and pink ball tests and even four-day matches, test cricket has discovered an aspect that didn’t exist earlier – entertainment. Ben Foakes believes that is the aspect the world of cricket needed tests to provide to prevent them from going down the roads of extinction.
The English team is currently being captained by Ben Stokes, who was made the new captain after Joe Root’s resignation. The head coach is Brendon McCullum, ex-New Zealand great. Ben Foakes hit the headlines when he was first elected in 2017-18 tour of the English Test team. Since then, he has been competing for the wicketkeeper position with Jos Buttler, although the latter has always remained in the team. Ben Foakes is particularly known for his keeping skills, where he specializes, while Jos Buttler also remains a part of the team as a reserve keeper but primary batsman. It remains to be seen if Ben Foakes is included in the squad for the T20 World Cup in Australia.
