‘No point sugarcoating it… we’ve been c**p’: Ben Stokes on England’s performance at the Cricket World Cup | Cricket-world-cup News

England have had the worst possible defence to the Cricket World Cup. The defending champions are currently languishing in bottom place in the 10-team standings after winning just one of their six matches so far.
And England talisman Ben Stokes didn’t pull any punches when asked for an assessment of his team’s performance in India.
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“We’ve had a disastrous World Cup. There’s no point sugarcoating that, because it’s the truth. The problem is that we’ve been c**p,” he said at a press conference in Ahmedabad where the team will take on Australia at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Saturday.
In their previous match against India they were handed a 100-run defeat at Lucknow.
Stokes went on to elaborate: “Everything we’ve tried throughout this World Cup, through trying to put pressure back on to the opposition in the way in which we know, or trying to soak up the pressure in a different way, which we know we’ve done before and been successful with, it’s just not worked.
“Every opportunity that we’ve had in front of us where we feel like we can take control of the game, the opposition’s managed to get it back towards them. We’ve just not been able to put a full game together, or even get close to putting a full game together – except against Bangladesh.”
Knee surgery after World Cup
Stokes also revealed that he would undergo surgery on his left knee after England’s World Cup ends. He said he would look to be fighting fit the time the England team play a Test series in India early next year. He added that he was expecting to be out for five and seven weeks after the procedure. Most Read
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“I will hopefully be fine for the Test series (versus India). I am having surgery after the World Cup… There was a lot of time put into deciding when to get it done. The India Test series, which we start at the end of January, I should be fine to go then,” Stokes said.
Exercise-induced asthma
Stokes was recently spotted with an inhaler during a training session in Bengaluru, usually used asthmatics.
When asked about it, he said: “Sometimes it happens when you go to a new city in India where the air is slightly different,” he said. “That could be a reason for it: Bangalore, when we actually turned up, just felt a lot fresher. Doing the running that I was doing (shuttle runs) does bring it on a lot easier than normal.”