Ben Stokes: we might be rubbish, but we're not arrogant
PL compares reactions to two catastrophic Ashes losses six years apart
Having been guilty of describing England’s cricket as “arrogant”, it is only fair that Ben Stokes be given space to contest the claim.
The England captain adopted a conciliatory tone in Brisbane on Saturday, but suggested the “A” word might be taking criticism of the side’s poor performance in the first Test a little too far.
“You can call us rubbish, call us whatever you want to be,” Stokes said.
“I think arrogant might be a little bit too far … sometimes you’re a bit like, ‘I’m not too sure about that one.’
“But that’s OK. We’ll take the rough with the smooth.”
Stokes’ side has been subject to a barrage of criticism from his own media and fans, many of whom were outraged after spending their money to fly all the way to Australia only to see the team capitulate inside two days.
This outfit, they’d hoped, would be the one to win the first away Ashes, or at least win a Test, which no visiting team had done since January 2011.
Stokes acknowledged the hurt felt by those who’d travelled from England.
“It’s a results-based job that we’re in. We love our fans.
“We know we’ve got an incredible fanbase who come out here and support us. They want to see us win. We want to win.
“We’re absolutely desperate. They’re absolutely desperate. In terms of that wavelength, we’re all on the same wavelength.
“We know that there’ll be a lot of disappointed fans in England after that first defeat. It’s a five-game series. We’ve got four games to go.
“We’re doing absolutely everything within our powers and using our time as best to allow us to go out there to try and achieve that goal.”
After a similarly confronting loss at Headingley in 2019, Australia had a plain-speaking review that was the last thing the players wanted, but which appeared to, for want of a less challenging metaphor, lance the boil.
You may recall us remarking at the time about how upbeat the touring group seemed at breakfast the morning after Stokes had denied them what appeared to be a certain victory.
Tim Paine, who was Australia’s captain in 2019, wrote about the aftermath of the defeat that could have derailed the entire series for the visitors in his book The Price Paid, which I ghosted for him.
Nathan (Lyon) fell to the ground when Stokes hit the winning runs and I walked over to him and pulled him up. I’d gone straight into captain mode and was thinking about how to deal with this. We were all devastated, but we couldn’t let that consume us. It was one game, we couldn’t let it destroy us, no matter how rotten it was to be on the wrong side of it.
JL had kicked the bin over in the coaches’ box, but he was really good with us. He went around the boys, saying, ‘Bad luck, you tried your guts out.’
I came out of the shower and could see that the boys weren’t in a good place, and I knew I had to talk to them. I remember I said that even though we’d lost the match, I honestly thought at that point we were a better team than them … I reminded them that for four days we controlled the Test match …
That said, I struggled to sleep that night. I felt physically sick … I felt like crap the next morning and even worse when JL announced we were going to review the match. It was the last thing any of us wanted to do and some in the room struggled to even look at the replays.
However, when we left the room, it was like I’d been unburdened of some guilt or something. I got off my chest that I’d made a mistake about the fields. I think everybody felt the same relief. We all headed across for breakfast and the mood had changed considerably.
The same cafe where Gideon and I waited with butter knives sharpened …
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