English all-rounder has named his fellow teammate Jos Butler as one of the best ODI players in the world. During his conversation with New Zealand spinner Ish Sodhi and Rajasthan Royals spin consultant on The Royals Podcast Episode 5, Ben Stokes heaped praise on English wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Butler by calling him one of the most versatile white-ball cricketers in the world.
During Episode 5 of The Royals Podcast, Stokes praised Jos Butler for his extraordinary ball-hitting skills and termed him a nightmare for the bowlers.
For me he is one of the most versatile and best ODI players in the world right now. You know he can destroy you; he can hit you 360 but he can also play innings like that in the World Cup final. To have that skillset as an ODI player is an absolute nightmare for an opposition captain or bowler.
Ben Stokes further praised the wicketkeeper for his fitness regime and also credited him to change the culture in the England dressing room.
Watching someone like Jos put in an extra 45 minutes to an hour on his fitness, that was what drove me to have a rethink to ‘I feel I can do more here. Slowly I started operating in that mode of ‘right I can do my skills-based stuff, let’s do some sprints, let’s go for a run’, and then it led into something bigger and better.
It then just got around the whole team with new guys coming in and just thinking that’s how everyone operates. I remember Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid used to be scared of the gym, but then those two started doing extra work and one of them in an interview said ‘we don’t want to let anyone down in the team over fitness,
Ben Stokes added further.
Stokes also talked about the importance of fielding in the T20 cricket and how he alongside the team had put hard yards at Rajasthan Royals.
You can afford to switch off every now and again in a Test match or a One-Day game but in a T20 game you can’t. As you’ll know from the last two years at Rajasthan I was massive on making sure everyone was putting in the effort to make their fielding better because I know that if you can save 2, 3 runs every game in the field then it is going to help you win games of cricket.
We had a great (fielding) coach with us, Yagi (Dishant Yagnik) who has so much energy absolutely loves cricket and loves fielding and he was so easy to work with. Me and Yagi would be sitting on the bus or back at the hotel discussing fielding drills to do that day so it was great fun doing something I’m not used to in terms of planning a fielding session.“
“The competitiveness is I think what brings the best out of everybody, you put a bit of competition on it, you know nobody wants to lose even though it’s a fielding drill and it’s at training,
Ben Stokes concluded.
Both Ben Stokes and Jos Butler were monumental in England’s first-ever World Cup triumph in 2019. Stokes and Butler added 15 runs together in the Super Over without losing their wickets. Stokes and Butler are also the part of the same IPL franchise as they both represent Rajasthan Royals.