Calm Stokes happy empathic outlook is lifting his side

England captain labels himself an optimist as he insists focus away from results is helping his team

- Ali Martin

Outside the tongue-twisting ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium O that sits among the green hills of Visakhapatnam stands a gold statue of CK Nayudu, the first man to captain India back in 1932 and whose ancestral roots were here in Andhra Pradesh.

Nayudu probably would have approved of this England team, the plinth on which his statue sits denoting, among other feats, the 153 struck for the Hindus against MCC at the Bombay Gymkhana in late 1926. An innings that helped convince the game's custodians that India were ready for Test status, it featured 14 fours, 11 sixes and a century brought up in 65 minutes. Bazball eat your heart out.

Not that an approach which has delivered 14 wins from 19 is all about thwacking the lacquer off the ball; fast scoring is simply a byproduct, as Stokes has long maintained. Nor is it even about those results which, given the number of supporters who have paid good money to travel to India, can be tricky to square publicly at times.

But sitting 1-0 up going into the second Test that starts tomorrow, and with Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul having joined Virat Kohli and Mohammed Shami on India's absentee list, England now have an opportunity as golden as Nayudu's statue. The trick, insisted Stokes two days out from the match, is not to think about it all.