Ben Stokes was “devastated” as England fell behind in the Ashes after a gripping climax to the first Test at Edgbaston but he was resolute that their style of play can topple Australia. The stage was set on Day 1 itself, with England opting to bat first after winning the toss and then declaring their innings on a total of 393/8. Although the bazball approach of the English side was questioned by many, they successfully restricted Australia seven runs behind their first innings total, i.e. on 386. However, England failed to set a big total and ended up giving Australia a target of 282 runs in their second innings. The loss yet again raised questions on England’s bazball tactic, and their early declaration in the first innings was blamed for losing the Test. In the meantime, English captain Ben Stokes opened up about the defeat and expressed his views regarding the same.
Speaking about the loss at the post-match press conference English skipper confessed that he and his team are absolutely devastated by the defeat. But he also reckoned that he’s happy with the way they played and that the side would carry the same approach in the coming games as well. “We are not a results-driven team, but we are absolutely devastated. The lads are in pieces up there. But if that’s not attracting people to the game we love then I don’t know what will. In terms of what we put into this week, taking the game on from ball one, it would have been easy to play it a bit safer but we didn’t do that, not one individual. That’s something I’ve very proud of,” said Stokes. “Though England were within sight of victory before Pat Cummins, the Australia captain, and Nathan Lyon put together an unbeaten partnership of 55 to change the course of the game, Stokes insisted that defeat was “not a psychological blow at all. If you look at the way we’ve played over the last five days, compared with other recent Ashes series, it shows we’re able to stand up to Australia in the way we want to play. There were so many questions coming into the series around whether we would be able to implement this style of play against that team, not just with the bat but with the ball against some unbelievable batsmen. I think we’ve proved that we can,” he added.
