SUBSTANDARD

12th man Stokes watched the Afghanistan debacle from the sidelines... but was front and centre telling England: So where was Bazball? We're supposed to be disrupting the opposition

- DEAN WILSON

WHEN Ben Stokes speaks, people tend to listen.

And in a rallying cry to his World Cup team-mates England's talismanic allrounder told them it is time to start disrupting once more.

In the wake of Sunday's stunning defeat by Afghanistan, the Test captain took the floor in the dressing room after head coach Matthew Mott had spoken and in typically nononsense fashion made it clear where England had gone wrong.

Flat, tentative, reactionary were all ways to describe England's performance and Stokes could see it from his vantage point as 12th man, running drinks and trying to cajole from the boundary.

Now that he is set to rejoin the team for their next match against South Africa on Saturday, he will be able to put into practice what he has been preaching, which is to unsettle the opposition.