The England skipper explained his side’s decision to withdraw the players who played in the Perth Test from the tour match against the Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra on Saturday
England captain Ben Stokes says his team is prepared to ‘take the rough with the smooth’ when it comes to absorbing media and fan pressure ahead of the second Ashes Test at the Gabba.
Stokes’ team has come under heavy fire for its dramatic two-day defeat in Perth last week, but the captain himself has declared he and his team have long moved on.
“Yeah, look, you can call us rubbish, you can call us whatever you want…,” Stokes said when asked about the manner of his side’s defeat.
“We didn’t have the Test match that we wanted to, but again, we were great in passages of that game.
“I think arrogant might be a little bit too far, but that’s OK, we’ll take the rough with the smooth.”
Speaking from England’s training base at Queensland’s Allan Border Field on Saturday morning, Stokes acknowledged the merit in his players preparing for the day-night Gabba Test with a pink-ball hit-out against the Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra, but remains confident his side’s preparation in the Sunshine State will prove more than adequate in its place.
“I do understand it (the debate),” he admitted.
“We’ve got a pink-ball Test match coming up in Brisbane, there’s an opportunity to play some pink-ball cricket, so I think when you look at it just like that, I don’t want to say it makes sense, but you totally understand it, but there’s obviously a lot more to it than just that.
“It’s in Canberra, which is in a different state to here in Brisbane, the conditions are obviously going to be completely different to what we’ve got coming up, so what you try and do is take all the factors into consideration, the pros, the cons, whatever it may be, and then you always discuss that and decide what is it that we think is going to be our best preparation.”
England has taken its time to lick its wounds, reflecting on the manner and speed of the defeat without dwelling too deeply upon it.
Stokes noted the approach was geared around not creating an environment where “people might just say things for the sake of saying it”, instead ensuring each player was able to reflect as they saw fit.
The task at hand in Brisbane comes with historical baggage, given England hasn’t won a Test at the Gabba since the summer of 1986-87.
But don’t let history, the weather, or the spectre of the pink ball trick you into thinking Stokes’ team harbours any fears ahead of the first ball on December 4.
“No, absolutely not,” he said.
“When you step off the plane, automatically you get hit by that heat and the humidity.
“I liken it almost to being in Sri Lanka compared with Perth, so you look over the three days we’ve been here, we’ve been out training, and we’ve actually really got an understanding of how different this week is going to be compared to Perth in terms of the weather and the conditions.
“It’s a lot more sweaty and stickier so we feel like it’s going to probably be a lot harder physically than the conditions that we faced in Perth.
“We’ve got an understanding of what it’s going to be like in Brisbane. It’s going to be tough, it’s going to be hard, but that’s why it’s called Test cricket.”
2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men’s Ashes
First Test: Australia won by eight wickets
Second Test: December 4-8, The Gabba, Brisbane (D/N), 3pm AEDT
Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT
Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT
Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT
Australia squad (second Test only): Steve Smith (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster
England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue, Mark Wood
