There was a moment on the final afternoon of the Rajkot Test when Ben Stokes swapped his position at slip with Ben Duckett and moved to extra cover.With Adil Rashid bowling, the ball was being driven in that direction often and he wanted to be in the game more.A little while later, with the batsmen stealing runs to Alastair Cook at mid-on, Stokes moved the England captain out of the way and took the position.He had already been promoted to No. 4 in the batting line-up, as England searched for quick runs before the declaration, and he had proved himself Englands premier bowler of reverse swing in Bangladesh. Hell, he even bowled a few overs of off-spin in the UAE last year.Increasingly, the answer to every question that England pose is Ben Stokes. Increasingly, he resembles that super-talented bloke in the school team who opens the batting and the bowling and then keeps wicket for a bit.Now, sitting in the team hotel in Visakhapatnam (and looking so like a Van Gogh self-portrait that you fear for his ears), he laughs at the description. But he doesnt deny it.Its come from the coaches, he says. Im always getting told, when the spinner is on and the ball is looking like it is going to a certain position all the time, go there. It was the same when Pujara was hitting the ball to Cooky at mid-on, I went over there.But I think I get given the responsibility to move myself and I have more confidence to do that. Rather than before, when I thought Id look a bit arrogant if I just said swap, and its come from the coaches as well which is good. The players dont take any offence.The desire to be in the thick of the action is nothing new for Stokes. But the confidence to ask players - including the England captain - to swap positions is new and reflects Stokes new-found self-confidence and status within the side. At times this winter, he has looked Englands best batsman, best bowler and best fielder. At times this winter - and yes, these are relatively early days - its looked as if Stokes has graduated from promising to the real thing. Notwithstanding Andrew Flintoff in his pomp, England havent had a better allrounder since Ian Botham.Stokes agrees that he owes his improvement, to some extent at least, to the faith shown in him by the England management. In particular, he credits his promotion to No. 6 in the batting order as crucial.I started off decent in Australia, but after that it was pretty shit, to be honest, he says. I didnt score a run against India in three innings. But they kept on picking me and picking me and, once Paul Farbrace got me back up the order to six, it carried on from there. The more Ive played, the more confidence Ive got. The last 18 months has been the turnaround period for me.Playing on low, slow, turning wickets was, in Cooks words, probably the last challenge facing Stokes. But, after an innings of 85 in Chittagong and 128 in Rajkot, it seems he has made substantial progress. Working with Graham Thorpe and Mark Ramprakash, he learned a method to defend against spin bowling so that he is able to soak up periods of pressure and capitalise if the bowlers tire or stray.Ive always known I can hit the big shots, he says now. But I tightened up the other things which dont come as easy: the defensive side of it and rotating the strike. I was doing sessions of not getting out, playing defensively, going forward or back no matter what the ball was. As nets progressed, I started getting into a few more attacking shots.My feet have got better. I do not get stuck on the crease as much as I used to. It still happens now and again, but Im generally getting right forward and right back. My technique against spinners has gone up a level and its good to be able to look back from a year ago and understand why I am being more successful.The century in Rajkot was, he believes, the first time he has batted for more than 200 balls in a single innings (he faced 198 for his epic 258 in Cape Town in January). While he accepts he had some luck - there were times I was laughing at myself and the amount of times the ball seemed to land in between fielders - he also hopes he has proved himself against what he calls the best team in the world and the best bowler in the world.Ravi Ashwin knows exactly where he is going to bowl every ball, Stokes says. He changes his pace and almost seems to read you. Its almost like you are telling him that youre going to run down the wicket and he bowls the ball where you dont want it to be. And Ravi Jadeja doesnt miss the area where he wants to bowl. To perform against them is a good feeling. Its the best feeling Ill have. All the work Ive done is paying off. We take confidence from it that we got 530 or whatever it was and lost only two wickets on a fourth- and fifth-day pitch. So from that point of view I think were pretty confident in the way we managed to hold off those two.The demands of batting for so long in hot conditions took their toll on Stokes. Cramp forced him off the field and, for the first portion of the India reply, he was unable to play a meaningful role with the ball. He accepts this is partially due to his difficulty in eating while he is batting - he explains that it makes him uncomfortable - and left the England support staff, in his words, trying to force-feed him.Our physio, strength-and-conditioning coach and doctor were trying to force-feed me pretty much, he says. I cant eat when Im not out, I dont know why. I literally cant eat, not even a protein shake or anything. Ive never been able to. I eat on a bowling day, definitely, just when Im not out I cant seem to eat anything.That was the reason for the cramp. Ill have to put up with a bit of cramp here and there, I think. Everyone gets it, except Cooky because he never sweats so he doesnt lose any fluid.I think this is the first time Ive realised it is tough to bat and bowl and try to back one of the skills up with the other. It doesnt really affect you in England because it is always freezing.For all the talk of giving Stokes responsibility - he was vice-captain to Jos Buttler when the ODI side played Bangladesh recently - he dismisses any suggestion that he might one day want to be captain.No, he says when asked if the responsibility appeals. You have to be boring like Cooky if you want to be captain. Im just enjoying being where I am at the moment which is having opinions valued by captains, coaches and other guys.I enjoyed being Joss right hand man. It didnt feel like I was doing anything different. The difference was Jos would have a few discussions whereas you normally see Cook and Rooty doing that or Eoin and Jos.He is frustrated, though, at Englands status as underdogs for this series, despite their improvement over the last 18 months or so - their Ashes win, their series victory in South Africa, their performance in the World T20 and an ODI series victory in Bangladesh that had proved beyond so many others of late.No matter what we have done over the last 18 months, we always seem to get underdogged, he says. But we pull something out of the bag, win and it seems a surprise to people. We are heading in the right direction in all forms of the game.Trevor Bayliss is a man of few words but one thing he complimented us on after every session in Rajkot was our attitude towards fielding. We were never switching off. We were always on it.We were not going into series thinking we were going to lose. We have taken a lot of confidence from knowing we were ahead of India pretty much the whole Test match. We have taken confidence from knowing how well we have done with bat and ball. Weve four games left and we are going to try and win all four.Investec is the title sponsor of Test match cricket in England. For more on Investec private banking, visit investec.co.uk/banking Nike Air Max 1 2021 . Kyle Denbrook, a soccer player from Saint Marys University, took the CIS male athlete of the week honour. Stanley, a fourth-year business administration student from Charlottetown, scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Dalhousie on Friday and tallied again in a 1-0 win over Saint Marys on Sunday. Fake Nike Air Max 1 . The Olympic champion curler and TSN curling analyst immediately went online to look at the Halls long list of honoured members. Thats when the enormity of the honour sunk in. https://www.cheapairmax1store.com/ . General manager Jarmo Kekalainen told Aaron Portzline of The Columbus Dispatch on Friday that he wants to see Gaboriks contributions go beyond the scoresheet before considering a long-term deal for the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent. Discount Nike Air Max 1 .Y. -- Sabres forward Drew Stafford has witnessed plenty of turmoil during his eight seasons in Buffalo. Nike Air Max 1 2022 . The winner Saturday will remain in the elite 10-team field next year. "We talked about wanting to be disciplined and stick with our game plan and good things will come," Draisaitl said, who had two goals for the victors. Kevin Durant is joining the Golden State Warriors.Saying he has experienced by far the most challenging few weeks in my professional life, Durant announced his decision to leave the?Oklahoma City Thunder?on Monday in a post on The Players Tribune.Durant is expected to sign a two-year, $54.3 million contract, sources told ESPNs Marc Stein. The deal will include a player option after the first year.The primary mandate I had for myself in making this decision was to have it based on the potential for my growth as a player -- as that has always steered me in the right direction, Durant wrote. But I am also at a point in my life where it is of equal importance to find an opportunity that encourages my evolution as a man: moving out of my comfort zone to a new city and community which offers the greatest potential for my contribution and personal growth.With this in mind, I have decided that I am going to join the Golden State Warriors.After Durant signs with Golden State, two-time reigning MVP Stephen Curry will be the fourth-highest-paid player on the Warriors. Durant will be No. 1, followed by Klay Thompson ($16.6 million), Draymond Green ($15.3 million) and Curry ($12.1 million), who can become a free agent after next season.Green told The Undefeateds Marc J. Spears in a text message that he was ecstatic the Warriors landed Durant. He tweeted to express his enthusiasm about his new teammate.Im excited about the opportunity to add one of the best players in the world to our team and welcome him to our brotherhood! This will be some of the best times of our life, and Im looking forward to it, he wrote.Durants contract can be finalized Thursday, when the leaguewide moratorium on signings and trades is lifted.Warriors coach Steve Kerr was in Hawaii and said he learned about Durants decision to join Golden State via The Players Tribune, ESPNs Ramona Shelburne reported.The Warriors plan to renounce their rights to Harrison Barnes, sources told Stein, to help clear the salary-cap space needed to sign Durant. That will make Barnes an unrestricted free agent on Thursday. Barnes, sources told Stein, remains on course to sign with the Dallas Mavericks, who reached a verbal agreement with the 24-year-old on a?four-year max deal worth $94.4 million, no matter what happened with Durant.The Mavericks also have agreed to a trade with the Warriors to acquire center Andrew Bogut and his 2016-17 contract, with a base value of just over $11 million. Just before Durants Players Tribune post, Bogut removed references to the Warriors from his Twitter page.Golden State will renounce its rights to center Festus Ezeli, which will make him an unrestricted free agent, but?guard?Shaun Livingston?was told by the Warriors that?he wont be traded, sources told Spears. Golden State also agreed to a one-year, $2.9 million deal with?Zaza Pachulia, according to a report by The Vertical.Thunder general manager Sam Presti expressed his teams disappointment over Durants departure in a statement.Kevin made an indelible mark on the Thunder organization and the state of Oklahoma as a founding father of this franchise, Presti said. We cant adequately articulate what he meant to the foundation of this franchise and our success. While clearly disappointing that he has chosen to move on, the core values that he helped establish only lead to us thanking him for the many tangible and intangible ways that he helped our program.Presti later said?the team had a pretty good idea that Durant was moving on even before its final meeting with him in the Hamptons on Sundaay.dddddddddddd.Even when we were relatively sure it probably wasnt going to go our way, eight staff members and our owner stayed overnight in New York just to be there and to kind of finish it out, Presti said at a news conference in Oklahoma City on Monday evening.Weve been there for every first in his career, and we wanted to finish it out the right way by being present whenever that decision was made, regardless of how it turned out.Presti said he was alerted to Durants final choice in a phone call from Durant on Monday morning a few minutes before the announcement.It was disappointing, it was hurtful; but at the end of the day, it was what he felt was best for him, Presti said.The Thunder will take some time before making any roster decisions, particularly related to All-Star point guard?Russell Westbrooks future, sources told ESPNs Brian Windhorst.The biggest catch on the free-agent market, Durant met with six teams over the past three days: Oklahoma City, Golden State, San Antonio, Boston, Miami and the Los Angeles Clippers. The Warriors held their meeting with Durant on Friday.?On Saturday, Durant spoke with NBA legend Jerry West, a member of the Warriors executive board, on the phone, sources told ESPNs Chris Broussard. West outlined the reasons he thought Golden State would be the ideal fit for the superstar forward.Durant, 27, has spent all nine seasons of his career with the Thunder organization. He won the MVP in 2014, has been named first--team All--NBA five times and has made seven All--Star teams. He has appeared in four Western Conference finals and one NBA Finals, in which he lost in five games to the Heat in 2012.Im from Washington D.C. originally, but Oklahoma City truly raised me, Durant wrote. It taught me so much about family, as well as what it means to be a man. There are no words to express what the organization and the community mean to me and what they will represent in my life and in my heart forever. The memories and friendships are something that go far beyond the game. Those invaluable relationships are what made this deliberation so challenging.It really pains me to know that I will disappoint so many people with this choice, but I believe I am doing what I feel is the right thing at this point in my life and my playing career.Durant bounced back last season to earn second--team All-NBA honors after undergoing three surgeries to repair a Jones fracture on his right foot suffered before the 2014--15 season, in which he was limited to 27 games before undergoing a season--ending bone graft procedure in March. Without Durant, the Thunder missed the postseason.With Durant back for 72 games last season, the Thunder improved to 55-27 and finished third in the West. The Thunder beat the Dallas Mavericks in five games in the opening round, upset the 67--win Spurs in six games in the second round and pushed the Warriors to seven games in the Western Conference finals.Durant averaged 28.2 points, 8.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists last season, and he scored at least 20 points in 67 straight games. In nine seasons, Durant has averaged 27.4 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game.Golden State set an NBA regular-season record with 73 wins and led the league in scoring last season, but the Warriors fell just short of a repeat NBA title and lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in seven games.ESPN staff writer Royce Young and The Associated Press contributed to this report. ' ' '