MARK BUTCHER
NEW COLUMNIST!

Ben Stokes’ decision to opt out of England’s T20 World Cup defence came as no great surprise after what we saw on the recent tour of India. After the 50-over World Cup it looked very unlikely that he would be able to get his knee ready to play a full part in that Test series, and that proved to be the case.
With Stokes unable to bowl, we saw the difficulties England faced in fielding a balanced XI in India and because of that they went into matches with three or even four spinners, with just one or two seamers, which wasn’t especially satisfactory – particularly...