Former Pakistan Cricketer Launches Scathing Critique On 'Arrogant' Ben Stokes And Company

The ex-Pakistan star said that Ben Stokes-led England should never underestimate Australia in the ongoing Ashes 2023.

England lost the first Ashes 2023 Test by 2 wickets.

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While there is a section of cricket fans who love the way England are going about their Test cricket and are all in favour of their "Bazball" approach of playing the longest format of the game, others are not too pleased with their style especially after the manner in which they lost the first Ashes Test at the Edgbaston in Birmingham. The Three Lions lost to Australia by 2 wickets on the final day of the opening Test match. Soon after the home team's defeat, the English side started to attract a lot of criticism.

England captain Ben Stokes became the centre of this criticism especially when he declared the first innings before the end of play on Day 1. And now ex-Pakistan cricketer Salman Butt has also joined those criticising Stokes' declaration call saying it was "arrogant" of them to take such a call which is what eventually cost them the match.

"You have to adapt according to the situation. There are no guarantees that all of your batters will score in every match just because you have batting depth. If you're set, you have to score big. You can't rely on others to make up for the failure. Everyone is aggressive in this England team, some are even overly-aggressive. A batsman is playing on 130, he's set, you have 10-odd overs, you're on 393, have a chance to add 50-60 runs more, so why did you declare?" Butt said in a video uploaded on his official YouTube channel.

"It didn't make sense. You have a five-day Test. They thought they will dismiss Australia early. I think they underestimated the opponents, it was an arrogant declaration. Australia aren't walkovers. In Pakistan, our bowlers were inexperienced. Even if it was our best bowling, even they didn't have that much of experience in Tests. We had three debutants in bowling attack, our emphasis had been on shorter formats. On the other hand, Australia are Test champions, they prefer Test cricket. They are ready to leave IPL for Tests. You can't take that team lightly," he added.