Not Virat Kohli, Ben Stokes names these 2 players as the top batters of this generation

England captain Ben Stokes believes that Joe Root and Steve Smith are the two greatest batters of this generation and excluded Virat Kohli from the conversation completelty. Stokes, who is set to lead the England team in the upcoming Ashes series, has been Root's teammate for a long time and has come up against Smith on many occasions as well.

England hoping to keep Smith quiet in Ashes

Stokes highlighted how important will be for England to keep Smith quiet during the upcoming Test series and added that he latter knows how to dominate against them especially at home. Notably, the Australia batter has a phenomenal record against the Three Lions in the longest format and has scored a total of 12 centuries against them so far.

"Not too much has changed because he (Smith) just gets runs against us, doesn't he? That seems to be a constant -- a serious player, has been for a very long time," Stokes said on the eve of the Ashes opener.

"Him and Joe Root, neck-and-neck in my opinion in terms of the greatest batters of this generation," he added.

Stokes feels England have the ability to achieve their goals

With the Ashes to commence from November 21 and the first Test set to take place in Perth, Stokes highlighted how tactically challenging the gruelling assignment will be for them. He went on to add that if they can keep Australia's top batters quiet, then they have a good chance of doing something incredible in the series.

"You always want to come up with ways to try and keep the best players quiet. And that's something that obviously we're going to have to do. It'll be a hard thing to be able to do," Stokes stated.

"But if we can keep Steve Smith, minus all the other guys in the batting order, quiet, then we've given ourselves a good chance to achieve in the goal that we want," he further added.

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Australia's playing XI for 1st Test: Usman Khawaja, Jake Weatherald, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith (c), Travis Head, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (wk), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Brendan Doggett, Scott Boland.

England's 12-member squad for 1st Test: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jamie Smith (wk), Brydon Carse, Gus Atkinson, Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Shoaib Bashir.