Ben Stokes scored an unbeaten 52 as England registered a five-wicket win over Pakistan. It joins their match-winning fairies category in the 2019 50-over World Cup final and the Headingley Ashes Test the same year.”He always stands up at the biggest moments,” Buttler said.”I’m so proud that he stood up and did it again.”
England restricted Pakistan to 137-8 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, then recovered from 45-3 to chase down the target with an over to spare.Stokes, whose place in the squad was questioned early in the tournament, scored his maiden T20 International half-century in the final after a match-winning knock in a must-win group match against Sri Lanka.
“He’s the ultimate competitor in whatever he does,” Buttler told Test Match Special. He has a lot of experience now and he can carry a lot on his shoulders. For the 31-year-old Stokes, the latest performance comes a year after he took over the captaincy and revived the fortunes of England’s Test team.
“Obviously he can get into the conversation,” Buttler said when asked if Stokes should be considered England’s greatest cricketer of all time.Stokes described the final win as an “amazing night”. “I’d rather sit in the dugout and try to influence the game than say I wonder what’s going to happen.Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood and Adil Rashid remain from England’s 2019 World Cup-winning squad. The recent win means they are the first men’s team to win both white-ball world titles at the same time.
“I’m very proud,” Stokes said. “You don’t get to win the World Cup often so winning two of them is very special.”It shows where we are as a team. We all know the talent that we have. We all have clarity from Jos and the management about what we want to do as a team and when you are clear what the ethos of the team is, it makes it a lot easier.
Buttler’s leadership has won the title just five months after taking over the captaincy in place of Eoin Morgan. The wicketkeeper was part of the England squad that crashed out of the 50-over World Cup in the first round in 2015. Since then, they have not failed to reach the semi-finals in five global tournaments.
“A lot has been done about the transformation of limited-overs cricket in England and the journey of teams. “Winning in 2019 and now also winning this T20 World Cup, it shows the vision that people had at the start of where we could have reached as England’s limited-overs side and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go strong.