England trailed Australia 2-0 in the series, and despite being given the opportunity to turn the second Test in Brisbane in their favor, the visitors faltered. Poor shot selection and an inability to adapt to the field conditions led to the batting collapse, allowing Australia to cruise to an eight-wicket win and extend their lead.
“I actually think Ben Stokes takes too much responsibility for everything. I have all the praise for him. He stands there at the end of every Test match they lose and says, ‘I’m going to take responsibility for this, this.’ [and] this. I did this wrong, I did that wrong.’” Healy said on the Willow Talk podcast.
“How about taking some of the load off your captain? ‘Hello, my name is Harry Brook, I played a shocking shot twice in this Test match (Brisbane) and I pumped our team twice unnecessarily’. I’ve never heard him come out and say that. There’s your captain standing up for him and saying, ‘I did this wrong, I did that wrong.’ To me, that screams trouble, and that creates a bubble environment between he and Brendon [McCullum] trying to empower their players to be good enough to be there and compete,” she added.
It has become a Bazball pattern that the team’s identity revolves heavily around the towering personas of Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum, whether by design or by default. Under their aura, the other players have often reduced their own presence. Healy isn’t the only one feeling the pressure on Stokes; even his former teammate James Anderson has expressed concern that the England captain could eventually buckle under the pressure.
“If I was an England fan I would be worried because that’s going to collapse at some point. If I were his teammate now and I genuinely cared about my captain I would do something about it because it’s not good enough,” Healy said.
“It seemed like Ben had a lot on his plate on the pitch – he was the one coming up with the ideas. I didn’t see many conversations between Ben Stokes and Harry Brook, he’s vice-captain. You’d expect a little more. Ollie Pope was vice-captain, I didn’t see him going to Ben.” I saw Jofra talking to Stokes a bit, but generally it was just Ben – that’s what it looked like from the outside,” Anderson said on the BBC’s Tailenders podcast.
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