Ben Stokes knows that in the next 12 months he will be expected to provide England with the impetus to win not only next summer’s Champions Trophy but also the Ashes in Australia.
After going for £1.7million in last week’s Indian Premier League auction, a staggering sum paid by the Rising Pune Supergiants, the pressure on him to perform will be increased greatly.
Yet the all-rounder, who last month became new Test captain Joe Root’s deputy, is confident he can live up to those expectations.
And that challenge will start tomorrow when England begin their three-match one-day series against the West Indies in Antigua.
“I guess I’m going to be expected by a lot more people to win games,” said Stokes .
“But making sure you’ve done everything properly and as much as you can [to succeed] is probably the thing that takes all that pressure off.”
England will come up against a West Indies team shorn of almost all their best players because of political wrangling.
However Carlos Brathwaite, the man who hit four successive sixes off Stokes’ final over during last year’s World T20 Final in Kolkata, is in the line-up.
Stokes, 25, added: “Their batsmen can hit the ball out of the ground whenever they choose to so we can’t be taking them lightly — if we do that, then it’s dangerous territory for us to be in.”
