England suffered a heartbreaking two-wicket defeat to Australia in Ashes 2023 opener at Edgbaston, Birmingham on Tuesday, June 20. Ben Stokes’s resolution to declare on 393/8 within the first innings was clearly one of many highlights of England’s loss however the English skipper defended his resolution and acknowledged that he’ll not change his model of cricket within the remaining 4 Tests.
The hosts had management over the sport when Australia misplaced their eighth wicket on simply 227 runs whereas chasing a 281-run goal. But Pat Cummins performed a captain’s knock of 44* off 73 to snatch away a memorable win. Stokes’ first innings declaration on Day 1 whereas Joe Root was batting at 118* drew quite a lot of flack from the previous cricketers, together with skipper Michael Vaughan.
Vaughan criticized Stokes’ early declaration and mentioned that hopefully, the all-rounder will not make the identical mistake within the second Test match at Lord’s. When requested about whether or not he’ll repeat the identical resolution at Lord’s, Stokes replied that he’ll do it once more if England are at 398/6 and have 20 minutes left to bowl.
“If we were in the same position? Yeah. I would like to be 398 for 6 [sic] with 20 minutes left. That would be great,” Stokes instructed reporters after the loss. “I could also turn it around and say, ‘If we didn’t declare, would we have got the excitement that we did at the end of day five?’ I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I’m not going to be looking back on this game as ‘what ifs’… the reality is, we just didn’t manage to get over the line.”
Stokes additionally cleared that he noticed an opportunity to pounce on Australia to begin Day 2 on prime and can not change his cricket on the idea of what-ifs.
“I thought that was a time to pounce. I am not going to change the way I have gone about my cricket because it is the Ashes. Who knows? We could have got an extra 40 runs or lost two wickets in two balls. I am not a captain who gets by on what ifs. We saw it as an opportunity to pounce on Australia and really start day two on top,” Stokes added.
