ICC World Cup 2019: Ben Stokes Upbeat About Winning The World Cup Despite Consecutive Defeats

England have made their chances of making it to the ICC World Cup 2019 more stiff with two back to back loses now. The recent defeat came against Australia earlier today when they went down by 64 runs at the Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. Ben Stokes, who was a lone warrior for the home side at London, is still confident about winning the World Cup despite back-to-back losses.

Stokes confident about winning the World Cup

After putting to bat first, David Warner and skipper Aaron Finch got Australia off to a flying start adding 121 runs for the first wicket. It was a difficult wicket to bat, and gradually, the conditions got bad. Contributions from Alex Carey down the order helped the defending champions post a challenging total of 285 runs on the board at the end of 50 overs.

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It was a tricky total to chase, and Jason Behrendorff got the perfect start for Australia. Micthell Starc soon joined the party to dismiss Joe Root and Eoin Morgan to put England on the backfoot. Striving at 26 for three, Ben Stokes started the revival but lacked partners at the other end. Jos Buttler, Chris Woakes and Adil Rashid got starts but failed to capitalise which left Stokes alone to do the job. Behrendorff cleaned the tail with a five-wicket haul while Starc bagged four wickets to bowl out England for 221 runs to book a semifinal berth.

Ben Stokes who battled alone to score 89 runs before getting out to an excellent yorker from Mitchell Starc is still upbeat about winning their first World Cup. The all-rounder said that it is the biggest opportunity for them to win the title given that the support they have got in the last fours. Stokes said that they will play the tournament as they have pled in the previous four years.

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“This is our World Cup. We’ve had great support over the last four years and we know how much the World Cup means to fans and we know that as players as well. It’s one of the biggest times and greatest times to be a cricketer, which is to represent your country at a World Cup,” Stokes said.

“But we are not going to take a backwards step and, as I’ve said, this is our World Cup and we are going to go about it how we want to,” he added.

England now face a daunting task of upstaging India in their penultimate league game to keep their semifinal hopes alive. The top-ranked ODI side will face New Zealand in their last group match, and Ben Stokes said that they need to take the encounters positively and put their best foot forward.