A few of West Indies guys didn’t play the game in the right way : Stokes
Dec 31, 2018 at 2:04 PM
The bitter history between Ben Stokes and Marlon Samuels has its roots in England’s tour of the Caribbean last April, when Samuels saluted the England all-rounder during a Test match in the Caribbean in April last year.
Marlon Samuels was in punchy moods during the final match of World T20. After Samuels kept the chase alive for his team with his brilliant 85 Carlos Brathwaite smashed Stokes for four sixes to snatch victory for the West Indies over England in the most spectacular and
cruel way possible.
After the match, sat in the press conference with his pads still on and feet on the table, Samuels revealed in Stokes’s misery and taunted him by saying it was unwise to wind him up.
“Well he doesn’t learn,” Samuels said then. “Because they keep telling him, whenever he plays against me (they say) don’t speak to me,because I’m going to perform.”
“I didn’t even face a ball and he had so much to say today so I know that I have to be right there until the end, again. Stokes is a nervous lad you know. What I told Brathwaite was … he’s going to bowl a couple of full tosses as always and it worked in our favour and Brathwaite played a brilliant knock there.”
Stokes finally spoke about the incident.
“I knew you had to let the winning team have 10 minutes to celebrate winning the World Cup,” Stokes was quoted as saying by The Mirror on Friday (April 22). “At the same time, you have also got to play the game in the right way when it’s finished.
“A few of those West Indies guys didn’t do that – Marlon being one of them, which was unfortunate. He won’t be on my Christmas card list or anything else really.
“People have battles on the field but also, you have to respect people who do well and he played a brilliant innings, he played a massive hand in winning them the World Cup. You have to say, ‘he got the better of us and of me that day’.
“But there’s a fine line between having a battle and not being gracious in victory.”
Expressing his views on the new point system proposed by ICC, where Tests, One-Day Internationals, and Twenty20 International series are added together to decide an overall winner, he said,“I think it’ll be rubbish if they did that.”
Talking about the effect of the new system on Ashes, he said:
“They have changed a lot of things but Ashes is Ashes, they are massive series for England and Australia and I don’t see why it should change.
“People who follow the game, would wonder, ‘why are we doing this?’ and I’d be in the same boat if they try to change it.”