It is a chicken-and-egg dilemma. Is England’s primary role under Ben Stokes to champion Test cricket or to win glory for the team and its supporters?
I ask because they are doing a good job of the first but not such a good job of the second, and that matters.
Take their recent series against India, whose passing many have lamented. The ding-dong nature of it; the depth of the drama; the revealing of character; as well as the eventual parity of the teams across a series tied 2-2 – it’s enthralled all who have watched it.
Yet most cricket fans I know would swap much of the drama for an Engl...
