‘Calling England Arrogant is a Step Too Far’ – Stokes Hits Back Ahead of Brisbane Clash

The England team is currently under heavy fire after a disappointing performance in the first Ashes Test. Many critics have questioned their strategies, especially the Australian media, which has harshly trolled the team following the Perth Test. England captain Ben Stokes is well aware of these comments, however, he is choosing not to respond to every jibe.

Talking about some comments that said England is an “arrogant” team, Stokes said that words like these should be avoided at all costs. He admitted that critics have the right to call England whatever they want, but calling them arrogant is definitely a step too far.

"Look, you can call us rubbish, call us whatever you want. We didn't have the Test match that we wanted to. We were great in passages of that game… but I think arrogant might be a little bit too far.” said Ben Stokes while talking to the media.

"But that's okay. We'll take the rough with the smooth. I'd rather words like 'rubbish', but 'arrogant', I'm not so sure about that." added Ben Stokes.

Recently, England declined the offer to play a practice match against the Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra. They said the match was unnecessary and that the team would focus more on its training sessions. This decision received a lot of criticism, both from Australia and within England.

Defending the decision, Ben Stokes said that playing a red-ball game before the pink-ball Test did not make any sense. He understands why people criticized their choice, but it simply didn’t seem suitable to them.

"I do understand it. We have a pink-ball match coming up in Brisbane, and we have an opportunity to play some pink-ball cricket. When you look at it just like that, I don't want to say it makes sense, but I totally understand it [that view].” said Ben Stokes.

"But there's obviously a lot more to it than just that. There's where it is, in Canberra, which is a different state from Brisbane. The conditions are going to be completely different to what we are going to have coming up.” added Ben Stokes.

He then elaborated that the team management takes every decision after carefully analysing the pros and cons. In the case of playing a practice match against the Prime Minister’s XI, they followed the same approach.

"You take all the factors into consideration, the pros and cons, whatever it may be. We then discuss that and decide what we think is the best preparation. We have a few more days off than we planned after that Test. We had to go away and ask how we use these next few days wisely in order to be prepared for what it will be like in Brisbane.” said Ben Stokes.

The England captain further explained that they plan everything according to the demands of a five-day Test match. A practice match certainly wouldn’t have provided that opportunity, so they decided to skip it and focus more on their actual training.

"We schedule everything as if the Test match is going to go five days. It didn't go five days, so we had three days planned of training, and that obviously had to change. That's why now we have a longer build-up for this pink-ball game." said Ben Stokes.

Plenty of Positives for England from the Perth Test

Talking about the Perth test, Stokes said that it had plenty of positives for the England team. He also admitted that England could have done a bit more in certain phases of the game to achieve a different result.

"We did some amazing things in that Test match. The way we bowled in the first innings, and we were [effectively] 100 for 1, and put a score on the board that we felt was definitely defendable. We all know, and have looked back on it, that there were moments in that game where we could have been a lot better to help us gain even more of an advantage.” said Ben Stokes.

The England captain then concluded by saying that the ultimate goal of the team is to win the Ashes. He understands that the fans back home would be disappointed, however, a big part of series is still left and plenty of positive things can still happen.

"We know that there'll be a lot of disappointed fans in England after that first defeat. But it's a five-game series, we've got four games to go, we've lost the first one - we're absolutely desperate to come home with that goal from before we even started the series, which is to win the Ashes." concluded Ben Stokes.