Trevor Bayliss, the England head coach, has called on his players to “pick up the slack” at Lord’s this week as Ben Stokes, one of their match-winners from the thrilling first Test with India, misses the game to attend his trial in Bristol.
Stokes is due in court on Monday after he and co-defendants Ryan Ali and Ryan Hale pleaded not guilty to a charge of affray in relation to an alleged incident in the Clifton area of the city last September. When he returns to international duty will depend on the Cricket Discipline Committee, which is due to convene after the conclusion of legal proceedings.
In the meantime, and with the second Test against Virat Kohli’s India team starting on Thursday, Joe Root’s side must perform without their talismanic all-rounder, whose demeanour during the series opener at Edgbaston was described as “golden” by Bayliss after his three wickets on the final morning sealed the 31-run win.
“It means that someone else has got to take up the slack,” said Bayliss, who will now oversee an England squad that welcomes back Chris Woakes from injury as the replacement for Stokes, with Surrey’s 20-year-old uncapped right-hander Ollie Pope taking the spot vacated by the decision to drop Dawid Malan. “It will be interesting to see who can step up and take [Stokes’s] place,” the England head coach said. “Someone, or two or three guys, have to do the extra yards. That will be a telling factor for the next match.”
Bayliss also played down fears that such a high-profile case running in parallel to a Test could prove a distraction to his players, and he pointed to the absence of Stokes during the winter Ashes series as guiding this view.
“I’ve got no concerns about it,” Bayliss said. “Ben has no concerns about it as well. Obviously, it’s something we would have liked to have not been happening. That was the same in Australia. But the boys just got on with it. There was a bit of chat before the series but once we got there it was about playing as well as we can.”
Looking ahead to the Lord’s Test, Bayliss said his players were “under no illusions” about needing to work on their batting and catching – four chances went down at Edgbaston, albeit with the now-discarded Malan responsible for three of them – but the head coach was encouraged by a bowling performance that exposed some Indian frailties against the Dukes ball. One man reprieved by England’s profligacy was Kohli, who en route to a masterful 149 in India’s first innings was put down by Malan on 21 and 51. With exactly 200 runs across the Test – nearly half his side’s output – the right‑hander has now usurped Steve Smith, the suspended former Australia captain, as the world’s No 1 Test batsman.
As a result, Bayliss is keen for his bowlers to keep the remainder of the Indian batting order down at Lord’s and thus heighten the expectations on Kohli. England’s lineup, though, could be viewed as having similar deficiencies and not least against spin, with Ravi Ashwin fresh from seven wickets including Alastair Cook bowled twice.
Bayliss said: “We’ve got a few guys who are not cemented in the team and that puts extra pressure on people like Root, Jonny Bairstow and those guys to make the big scores. I don’t think it’ll be any different for India. The way Kohli played was high-class stuff. If we can put pressure on the others, that’s going to add to the pressure on him.
“When the ball’s moving, we’ve shown that a few of their guys do struggle. I’m sure that they’ll be going away working out how they can play it, as we’re working on how to play the off-spin.”
