England pace bowler Josh Tongue lamented the absence of Ben Stokes at the end of the fourth day of the second Test against New Zealand at The Oval.
The hosts are staring at defeat, needing 281 runs with only five wickets in hand heading into day five. England scored 291 in response to New Zealand’s first-innings total of 391 and currently stand at 182/5 in their second innings. Stokes’ absence has been felt with both bat and ball, and Tongue did not shy away from admitting it.
“Stokesy is an unbelievable player,” said Tongue in the press-conference at the close of play. “Obviously, I made my debut when he was captain, so I’ve got huge respect for Stokesy. It’s always nice seeing him score some runs as well. We’ve missed him, but we’ve got a lot of leaders in our team too. Rooty, stepping in as captain, is obviously an unbelievable player and an unbelievable leader as well. It’s been good.”
Tongue also gave a debrief on the team’s meetings at the end of the day.
“We obviously have our little debriefs at the end of each day’s play, and we always go around the lads and try to say as much as we can if we got things wrong during the day, and then obviously praise each other as well,” he added.
Stand-in captain Joe Root is unbeaten on 75, with debutant and last recognised batter Jordan Cox yet to score at the other end.
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