Perth, Nov 23 (LatestNewsX) – England captain Ben Stokes said the team has to let the pain of a heavy defeat at the first Ashes Test linger a bit before shifting focus to Brisbane. The opening match, played over just two days, saw Australia win by eight wickets. Stokes, who described Travis Head’s 123 as “pretty incredible”, added that he will wake up on Sunday with the goal of boosting the squad’s morale.
After the game at Perth Stadium, Stokes told reporters that the squad has faced similar setbacks before. “We’ve been in situations before where we have been behind in series, so our attitude that stands out that allows us to move on to the next game through good and through bad,” he explained. He emphasised how the team handles emotions: “We’re a very good team at, I think, dealing with emotions… (And) I’m a pretty level‑headed person in terms of success and failure, so I’ll wake up in the morning and still be incredibly disappointed. But all of my focus and all of my energy will be going into getting the group back up and moving our thoughts onto Brisbane.”
Stokes voiced confidence that England will not carry any baggage into the Gabba Test, even though the hosts staged a dramatic turnaround in the afternoon. “Obviously, there is disappointment and a lot that you come off the field with when being on the losing side. So that’s up to myself (and) it is up to Baz (Brendon McCullum) and some of the other senior guys, who have had a lot of experience in big series like these. You’ve got to let your emotions sink in and it has got to hurt,” he said. “But you have also then got to get rid of them as quickly as you possibly can while also learning from it, because when we get to Brisbane, we need to be back up to that mindset of how we came into the series before this game. We are still very confident in our abilities and in achieving our goal. It is going to be crucial … not taking any baggage from this result into Brisbane, because we need to win that one.”
He insisted that England’s aggressive “Bazball” style is the right way forward, even after the collapses in both innings. Several players fell early while trying ambitious shots, but Stokes believes that the strong batting shown by Head and others proves the value of attacking cricket. “I think you can label it how you want when obviously things are dictated on the outcome of the decision. But as I said, the batsmen who found success out there were ones who, when any scoring opportunity came their way, didn’t feel like they wanted to let go. You still have to find ways of scoring runs on flat wickets. You still have to find ways of scoring runs on wickets that offer a lot for the bowlers.”
The 19 wickets that fell on Day 1 highlighted how a proactive approach to scoring gave England a 50‑run lead. “Obviously it would have been nice to have a bigger lead going into our last bowling innings, but we were very confident about our ability to keep Australia restricted to under 200 and win the game,” he concluded.
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