England captain says England will lick their wounds and try to come back stronger at Brisbane
ESPNcricinfo staff22-Nov-2025
Stokes consults with his senior team-mates as the Perth Test runs away from England•Getty Images
Ben Stokes, England’s captain, admitted he and his team had been left “shellshocked” by Travis Head’s stunning 69-ball century, as Australia transcended the chaos of the first three innings of the first Ashes Test at Perth to romp to victory by eight wickets and with three whole days to spare.Head left the field to a standing ovation after his stunning knock of 123 from 83 balls had ripped the momentum away from an England team that seemed to have the contest in their grasp when they went to the second-day lunch break on 65 for 1, with a lead of 99 and nine wickets in hand.But a calamitous collapse of 4 for 11 in 19 balls, initiated by a fine spell from Scott Boland, turned the contest back in Australia’s favour. Though England’s lower-order rallied to set the hosts 205 for victory – the highest innings total of the game – Head’s promotion to the top of the order, in the absence of the injured Usman Khawaja, proved a blessing in disguise as he came out swinging, to blaze Australia to their target in a mere 28.2 overs.It was an example of England being comprehensively beaten at their own hard-hitting game, and Stokes was in awe of Australia’s matchwinner at the post-match presentations.”We’re a little bit shellshocked there,” Stokes told the host broadcaster. “That innings from Travis Head was pretty phenomenal. It’s quite raw, quite fresh at the moment but, geez, that was some knock. It’s knocked the wind out of us.”Asked if he regretted England’s approach to their own second innings – in particular a trio of big shots from Ollie Pope, Harry Brook and Joe Root in the midst of that post-lunch collapse – Stokes insisted that England’s approach had not been the wrong one, as Head’s own success demonstrated, but their execution had been lacking.”If you look at the way the game eked out, the guys who seemed to have success out there with bat in hand were the guys who were really brave and took the game on,” Stokes said. “Anyone who tried to stay around there and try and occupy the crease didn’t really seem to have too much success.Related
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“On wickets like this, you never think you’ve got enough, so if you find yourself in a position where you’re the guy who’s managed to get in, try and give yourself the best chance of going on. There was a lot of assistance there when the bowlers put the ball in the right areas. The guys who were brave enough to knock the bowlers off their lengths seem to find success on that.”Ultimately, however, England were blown away by Head’s extraordinary onslaught. Asked what more he could have done to contain such an aggressive innings, Stokes said: “We tried three or four different plans at him. When he was going like a train, those plans can change quite quickly, because those runs were coming down quickly.”I’ve seen Travis play a lot of knocks like that, whether it be in Test cricket or white-ball cricket. He’s very hard to stop.”Because of the two-day finish, England now have close to a fortnight to prepare for the day-night Test in Brisbane, beginning on December 4. Stokes admitted that his team would have to lick their wounds after such a bruising defeat, but said that the performance of his five-man pace attack in the first innings was proof that there will be some positives to take into the rest of the series.”The way in which we bowled yesterday was simply phenomenal,” Stokes said. “A lot happened on day one, 19 wickets fell, so it was a good day for the bowlers.”This is a very tough one to get the series going when we felt we were in control of the game, and we were coming out there to bowl in that fourth innings. We’ve got four more games here.”We’ll obviously let this sink in. Obviously it hurts extremely, but we got to get our heads round and move on to Brisbane, and then hit the ground running there.”
