"He just gave a little tip out in India"- When Steve Smith's tip to Ben Stokes during IPL helped England beat Australia in Champions Trophy

Ben Stokes and Steve Smith have been teammates at multiple IPL franchises. The two cricketers played together for Rising Pune Supergiant in 2017 and then turned up for the Rajasthan Royals in 2019 and 2020.

IPL 2017 was Stokes' debut season in the league. Playing under Smith's captaincy for Rising Pune Supergiant, Stokes produced an extraordinary performance that helped him win the MVP award. In fact, he continued his rich form after IPL and guided England to a memorable win in a Champions Trophy match against Australia.

Stokes' ODI career had not been that great until the Champions Trophy, especially his records while chasing. However, in the match against Australia, he scored an unbeaten 109-ball 102 after coming out to bat at number five, with the score being 35/3.

"He [Steve Smith] just gave a little tip out in India, something on my technique, something that he felt could help me with. Just that I was losing my backside a bit when I was hitting," Stokes said after the match. (via cricket.com.au)

Smith captained the Australian side in that game. Although the Aussies had quality bowlers such as Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, and Adam Zampa, they could not stop Stokes from leading England to a six-wicket win.

"The whole thing with the IPL is the exposure you get to big moments" - Ben Stokes

Ben Stokes won the Man of the Match award for his unbeaten hundred. He gave credit to IPL for his success under pressure, saying (via ESPNcricinfo):

"The whole thing with the IPL is the exposure you get to big moments in games playing in front of a huge crowd all the time. You get exposed to those situations more.

"At Edgbaston we were 35 for 3 but you can just mentally look back to a time in the past and reflect on that and also take confidence in knowing that you have been in that situation before and done well."

Ben Stokes further highlighted that IPL gave him a chance to compete with the best players in the world. He concluding by saying that a good performance in IPL boosted his confidence a lot.