Manchester, Jul 22: Ben Stokes has sent a firm message to India ahead of the fourth Test at Old Trafford, starting on Wednesday, stating that his team won’t back down from any on-field confrontations.

“It’s a massive series and heat will be shown. Have England been nice? Potentially. We won’t purposely start anything, but we won’t take any backward step,” Stokes said in a pre-match press conference.

The series has already seen plenty of intensity with England leading 2-1, and Stokes admitted the side enjoyed a much-needed break after their win at Lord’s. “I was in my bed for two days… felt like I was in a long-distance relationship with my family,” he joked. “It was a good win and a nice break. We’ll look to put the same energy next week.”

England have made one change for the Manchester Test, with left-arm spinner Liam Dawson replacing the injured Shoaib Bashir. Stokes praised Dawson’s return, highlighting his domestic performances.

“Dawson has been performing really well. He got recalled into the team, and I’m sure there will be nerves, but he’s experienced enough to handle it.”

Stokes also welcomed back Chris Woakes, who returns after a break. “We had a big break, a good opportunity to freshen up. Woakes has a good record here.”

The England captain didn’t shy away from addressing the controversy around slow over-rate penalties. England were docked two WTC points and fined 10% of their match fee following the Lord’s Test win, prompting Stokes to call for change.

“Over rate isn't something that I worry about, but that's not saying that I purposely slow things down. I do understand the frustration around it, but I honestly think there needs to be a real hard look at how it's structured. You can't have the same rules in Asia, where spin is bowling 70 per cent of the overs, to have the same laws in New Zealand, Australia, England, where it's going to be 70-80 per cent seam bowling,” he explained.

“Because a spinner's over takes less time than a seamer's over. So common sense would think that you should look at maybe changing how the over rates are timed in different continents.”

Stokes defended England’s over-rate in the Lord’s Test by pointing to Bashir’s injury and the heavy workload on the fast bowlers.

“I can understand it from an external point of view around the overs, I really do. But it's a very tough thing to do when I feel there's more to it than just getting rounds, getting told I'll just quicken up, get three overs. There's a lot that actually goes on the field. You've got fast bowlers bending their backs consistently. So throughout the course of a game, the time of overs is going to come down because you've just got tired bodies.”

“We played for five days, that was our 15th day of cricket. We obviously had an injury to Shoaib Bashir, a spinner. So we couldn't turn to our spinner as much as we would have liked to on day five. So we had to throw a seam at them for pretty much the whole day. So that's obviously going to slow things down. And there are periods in the game where you do try and just slow everything down, more tactically if anything like that.”

(IANS)

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