Ben Stokes will go into the fifth and final Ashes Test in Sydney adamant that he and Brendon McCullum should be given the chance to carry on as captain and coach – despite England’s 11-day capitulation in Australia and the mixed messaging that seemed to affect the players during the crucial defeat in Adelaide.
The madcap win at Melbourne at least averted the possibility of a whitewash, and victory at the SCG would limit the damage to 3–2. Only once since 1986-87 have England won more than one Test in a series down under.
Defeat would mean a less palatable 4–1 scoreline but, as Daily Mail Sport reported yesterday, there is little appetite among the ECB hierarchy for sweeping change, no matter the outcome over the next few days.
And that position has been supported by Stokes, who believes that the toxic four-yearly cycle of recrimination and sackings must end if England are to win back the Ashes in 2027 – then retain them in 2029-30.
‘We haven’t won here since 2010-11, and since then things have happened because people think we need to change things, but it has not really worked, has it?’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of people who sit above me. Ashes tours in the past haven’t gone well. But if you do what we did four years ago, we’ll just end up back in the same situation.
‘There is no doubt in my mind that me and Brendon are the right people to carry on doing this for the near future.’
The belief among high-ranking ECB officials is that the wave of sackings which followed the 4–0 defeat in 2021-22 left the England set-up with little ‘institutional memory’ of how to handle an Ashes tour, both on and off the field. In their view, battle-hardened cricketers and coaches are more likely to compete in Australia than relative novices.
That does not mean lessons will not be learned, or that changes will not be made, with the chaotic and undermanned backroom staffing arrangements certain to come under the spotlight.
The consensus, though, is that England will stand a stronger chance of winning back the urn next year if the existing set-up isn’t discarded en masse.
That will anger some fans still furious that England, by their own admission, failed to prepare the team properly for the first Test at Perth, where a likely victory evaporated into a demoralising defeat inside two sessions. But England are determined to avoid playing to the crowd.
‘I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the time I’ve worked with Brendon,’ said Stokes. ‘I can’t see there being someone else who could take this team from where we are now to even bigger heights.
‘We’ve put so much time and effort into getting this team to where it is. And we know we want to get even more out of the group and individuals. We’re both pretty keen on carrying on doing what we are doing.
‘As captain and coach, we have to put our heads together and go: “What is it that we think we need to do to go to the next level?” Because, being perfectly honest, you look at how things have gone over the last year, and the results and the consistency haven’t quite been there from the first two and a half years we were in charge.’
For all Stokes’s insistence that he and McCullum remain watertight, their public pronouncements on this tour have not always aligned. Before the third Test at Adelaide, Stokes backed up his ‘no place for weak men’ speech after the Brisbane defeat by urging his players to locate their inner ‘dog’. England responded by scoring at 3.27 an over, their slowest first-innings run-rate of the Bazball era.
After the game, McCullum said he hoped the players would relocate their ‘freer’ batting identity, but Stokes said: ‘Being ‘free’ isn’t about how quickly you’re scoring. It’s being free in the mind and being very clear about what you need to go out there and do.’
He admitted, though, that the past few weeks had been his toughest as captain, and said the scrutiny he and his team have faced has been more intense than ever.
‘I can’t lie and say it’s been a walk in the park like some of the series feel like they have been back in England, because you’re used to the conditions, you’re in your home and can nip back whenever you want between games,’ he said.
‘Out here you don’t get the chance to do that, especially at the start of the tour, when everything was just on top of us as a team. We expected it, we’d planned for it, and I’ve done a few tours here, but it’s been even higher than any other tour I’ve been on.’
Asked how his players could cope with the endless barrage of social-media hot takes, especially from ex-pros, Stokes replied: ‘The only way to do it is just throw your phone in the river.’
Amid all the talk about the future, it was easy to forget about the Test match still to come, though Australia coach Andrew McDonald’s comment – after his side’s two-day defeat in Melbourne – that the Ashes were over at 3–0 did not go unnoticed in the England dressing-room.
‘Yeah, well, he sees it that way, we see it differently,’ said Stokes. ‘I get it: they’ve won the Ashes. But you’re still going out there and representing your country, so there’s still lots to play for.’
