Phil Walker

I think Stokes is slightly different, perhaps, because Stokes occupies a unique position in English cricket.

He is the one in English cricket.

And

There's been a slowish narrative suggesting that Stokes got the message earlier than McCullum might have done, that Stokes had started to realise that you can't just play this one way, this one-track way, and that McCullum was perhaps more of an ideologue, if you like.

So I think there's more credit for Stokes, and there's more affection for Stokes as well, of course, because of what he's done on the field for England.

But it is very, very delicate at the moment.

And as I say, there's a large chunk of people that want to see them go down because it will clarify it all for them.

And then they'll be able to say it was bollocks all along.

Can I ask you, Sam and Ian, what was your reading of how England...

went about it now the dust has settled right now we're not we're not shouting any odds and we can talk about this soberly what was your impression of how england went in in that series from a from the from the point of view of of their approach the fundamentals of their their theory that obviously drives so much of what they do in 23 no sorry just gone just gone oh uh right

Okay.

There's no kind of, you don't allow for any space for them.

So there's certainly been...

The word that McClellan keeps using is refinement.

And he gave a series of interviews last week and they were kind of like sealed interviews.

There was one with the ECB, which is now the nature of the thing.

But he did do some interviews with the press.

And I was there on Friday last week for a series of interviews.

And he kept using this phrase, we've got to trust our jab, trust our jab.

Right.