England’s red-ball skipper Ben Stokes knows the reason behind his country’s constant poor performance in the ODI format. Notably, England lost the opening ODI of the ongoing three-match series against South Africa by 27-runs on Friday (January 27). This was their fourth straight loss in the ODI after a 3-0 loss to Australia immediately after their T20 World Cup triumph.
With ODI World Cup fast approaching, defending champions have lot of homework to do ahead of the marque e tournament. Meanwhile, prolific all-rounder and Test captain, Ben Stokes has come up with an interesting response when a tweet highlighted England’s dismissal performance in the format. In response to the Wisden's tweet on "What is England's biggest issue in ODI cricket?", Ben Stokes wrote, "Begins with S ends with E and has chedul in there as well."
Stokes, who was Player of the Match in 2019 World Cup final, announced his retirement from ODIs last year citing workload management but continued to play Test and T20I cricket. "There is too much cricket rammed in for people to play all three formats now," he had said in July 2022. "We are not cars, you can't just fill us up and we'll go out there and be ready to be fuelled up again,” Stokes said while announcing his retirement.
However, demand for Stokes’ return in the 50-over format keeps on popping up looking at the form he is in. Earlier this week, England’s current white-ball skipper Jos Buttler stated that he is open to the idea of Stokes’ return to ODIs.
"If he wants to change his decision, of course he'd be welcomed back with open arms, but we are very much at the moment planning as if he won't be available," Buttler said while addressing the media ahead of the first ODI against the Proteas.