England captain Ben Stokes has questioned the mentality of England players after they faced another loss in the ongoing Ashes series to go 2-0 down already. After losing the first Test in Perth in just two days, England lost the D/N Test at the Gabba as well.
“Over and over again, Australia have managed to get through those periods and outdo us,” Ben Stokes said after the game. “I know it’s not a skill thing, because they’re all incredibly talented players. But if you can’t put it down to skill then you start to wonder, what is it? Do we need to start thinking about what mentality we’re taking into those pressure moments?”
“Because when we’re on top we’re great, but when the game is neck and neck we’re not coming out on top on enough occasions to be able to challenge Australia. There is a saying that we have said a lot here, that Australia is not for weak men. A dressing room that I am captain of isn’t a place for weak men either,” he stated.
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Ben Stokes also shared that England have been put under pressure by Australia in this series and they have not been able to cope up as well.
“The mental side of this game is tough,” Stokes said. “Being in the right frame of mind when you’re on top, that’s the easy part. It’s when you’re behind, or when you’re in the pressure moments, that’s the hard part. We’ve been the team who have done that to other oppositions before, where we’ve put them under serious amounts of pressure and they’ve not been able to stand up to what we’ve offered. And at the moment, we’ve not been able to stand up to what Australia have thrown at us.”
Meanwhile, Head Coach Brendan McCullum had shared that his team had over-prepared before the Brisbane Test to which Stokes agreed.
“There’s a great saying: are you going to train to train, or are you going to train to dominate?” Stokes pointed out. “There’s a lot of training that you see go on where you’re just doing it for the sake of doing it. You’re doing it to look right, to be doing the right things, whereas actually you’re not achieving anything out of it. It might look good to the external world (but) wasting energy can be very, very detrimental. I understand that surely if you train more you’re going to be better. But there’s that saying, and I like to train to dominate, as does this team.”
“Root getting a hundred is a great example for the group,” Ben Stokes concluded. “Just look at the scrutiny he was under coming out here. He sat next to me after that first Test in Perth and apologised – which I said he never has to do – and told me he would get a big score next time. That is an incredible mindset that everyone can feed off. To do what he did this week, a lot of guys can learn from that, myself included.”
