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England under Ben Stokes have never lacked ambition, but they go into a defining period of Test cricket with one in particular in mind: to become the first England side in 15 years to take top spot in the International Cricket Council’s rankings, officially the best in the world.
“If we win what we’ve got coming up, the likelihood is that we will be at the top of that leaderboard,” Stokes said. “There’s no doubt in my mind we have the ability to be that team.”
The ICC’s latest annual update placed England at No 2, behind Australia, with five-match series against India this summer and the Australians in the winter to follow the one-off game against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge that starts on Thursday.
England last took the No 1 ranking in August 2011, on their way to beating India 4-0 at home, before losing it again against South Africa the following summer. The possibility of repeating that feat has been discussed by Stokes, the coach Brendon McCullum, and the ECB’s managing director of men’s cricket, Rob Key.
“When the rankings came out, I did send Baz and Keys [Rob Key] a text saying: ‘We’ve got one more place to go’,” Stokes said. “Baz uses this phrase a lot: ‘We’re starting from a place of strength.’ For us to be able to build on that, and everyone knows that we’ve got improvement to do. It’s very exciting that we are where we are as a team at the moment. Everyone understands and knows we’ve definitely got another level to go to.”
One word in particular was to the fore as Stokes laid out the path ahead for England on the eve of their first game of the summer: “The word I love and what I’ve tried to instil in this team is ‘dominance’ and ‘dominate’,” he said. “Whatever situation we find ourselves in, that’s the word I want to be at the front of our heads. I want this team to dominate series, to dominate days, dominate every session. It’s not always going to happen like that, but that’s the mindset I want us to go out with every single day, so everything is aimed towards winning.”
News of a fresh injury setback for Jofra Archer, whose damaged right thumb has ruled him out of the forthcoming ODI series against West Indies – for which Lancashire’s Luke Wood has been drafted in – and the England Lions game he was hoping to use as a springboard into a summer of red-ball cricket, is fresh evidence that plans can go awry.
The Lions squad was announced and Stokes himself may join it depending on his performance against Zimbabwe, his first competitive action since December, when he tore his hamstring in Hamilton. “It will just be how I feel at the end of this, if I feel I need any more game time before we head into India,” he said.
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Stokes insisted the Zimbabwe game was “our sole focus at the moment” but he will not be alone in thinking ahead to the India series, which starts at Headingley on 20 June – particularly after the captain said one of the batters in this game will be making way for Jacob Bethell once the 21-year-old, who returned from his debut series in New Zealand in the winter with three half-centuries and an average of 52, returns from the IPL.
“If you talk about nailing down a position, Beth has done himself the world of good by the performances he put in there, with being part of our plans going forward,” Stokes said. “Obviously he’s going to be back in the UK for that India series, so I think you can put two and two together.”
