Ben Stokes sat inside the ground floor media conference hall at the JSCA Stadium in Ranchi. As a captain, he had just lost a Test series for the first time since taking over in mid-2022.
The ten-minute-long interaction started with the admission of disappointment about the defeat, but it did not take long to trail towards a familiar trend that one could see through this series.
There was praise for Indian spinners, the challenges of facing them, a promise of the future in Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir and some updates on the fitness of a few players. By and large, most of the interaction was Stokes talking about the environment,
enjoying the game and having fun – the routine positive reinforcement and backing of players – how England competed and pushed India (which they did) and the fact that there will be a lot more series to be won in the future.
This phenomenon is not new if you have closely followed the series and England interactions. There has been a conscious effort, to keep that bubble intact and happy, especially on the away tour, to get the best out of their players.
Truth be told, it has worked to a certain extent. However, amidst all the positivity, the one question, and perhaps the most important one, that did not come up was how Stokes has fared as a player throughout this tour.