Tuesday 29 March 2016 12:15, UK
Ben Stokes says he is relishing his role as England's death bowler as Eoin Morgan's side prepare for their World Twenty20 semi-final against New Zealand.
The Durham all-rounder has been handed the ball for the final over of Engand's last two matches, giving up just eight against Afghanistan and half as many in a superb effort to close out victory over Sri Lanka in two must-win games that ensured progress to the last four.
Against Sri Lanka, Stokes faced only one ball as a batsman, but he struck it for six and his admits he loves taking centre stage.
"I'd much rather be doing that last over thing than sitting there watching and hoping whoever bowls it gets us through," he said.
"I'd rather be the man doing it. It's a lot easier on the nerves. It sounds silly to say when you're the person doing it, but I'm not very good watching in tight situations like that.
"I just love being involved in the game and the high-pressure situations. It probably brings the best out of me in terms of my cricket.
"Hopefully we don't get it down to that tight again, but I enjoy getting put into the big moments in games.
"Over the last year and a half we've had a group that has focused a lot on the end of innings stuff because we know it can win you a lot of games and we showed that the other night.
"We do a lot practice of it in the nets, specific plans that we want to do for certain types of batsmen, so we've worked on it hard and it's one of the areas where we know if it gets into a tight game we are quite confident."
England face a New Zealand side on Wednesday that has won all four of its matches in the tournament, but is yet to play at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi, where England have played twice on a pitch that can be difficult to read.
"This is our third game there so you could say it's like a home game, even though it's in India," added Stokes.
"I think it does (offer an advantage), yeah. We learned a lot from the Afghanistan game leading into Sri Lanka, knowing we're a little bit more used to the conditions, knowing it's quite hard to get yourself in on a wicket like Delhi.
"And also having the experience of bowling here. We know that hitting that back-of-a-length is quite difficult, because it's quite variable in bounce - some will skid through, others hold up. That's one thing we'll take into the game as well."
