England captain Ben Stokes offered a damning assessment of his side’s failure to handle pressure after the tourists fell 2-0 behind after another heavy defeat in Brisbane.
Australia wrapped up another dominant eight-wicket win inside four days, blasting to a modest chase of just 65 after England had collapsed again in their second innings.
Stokes, who made 50, and Will Jacks had shown plenty of fight, grit and application in a watchful partnership of 96 in the first session of the fourth day before their stand was snapped by a stunning Steve Smith catch at first slip.
The damage had been done, though, by a collapse on the third evening from a position of relatively solidity at 90/1 to 134/6 at the close after Australia had made England’s bowlers toil in the heat with a disciplined performance.
It leaves Stokes’s side needing to come from 2-0 down to win the series, a feat achieved in Ashes cricket only once by Don Bradman’s Australia on home soil in the 1930s.
Pinpointing England’s problem, a visibly frustrated visiting skipper explained that his side had consistently failed in the key moments when the game was on the line — both in this series and beforehand.
“It is a common theme from the first game and before this series. When the game is on the line, teams are able to handle that pressure better than us,” Stokes explained to TNT Sports.
“We are a great team when we are ahead; when we are behind and needing to play catch-up, we are great. But when the game is on the line, we are not able to stand up to that pressure. It is something that for me, as captain, is starting to become quite obvious.
“It’s a mentality, it’s a mindset about how you take yourself out there in those situations. Test cricket has its own pressure anyway and how you handle yourself in those moments, how you get yourself in a clear space to make decisions is so important to be successful. I will be having conversations around that. We are 2-0 down, we’ve got three games left to do what we wanted to come here to do. I will be doing everything I can.”
England created plenty of opportunities in the first innings despite a wayward start with the ball. A series of dropped catches allowed Australia to amass an imposing 511, though.
Stokes believes the difference in the field proved costly: “Dropped catches can come back to bite you, and we saw that.
“If we’d held on to our chances, we wouldn’t have been batting last night. No-one means to drop catches, or not bowl an area you set plans to, but those kind of things can’t happen at this level. Look at Australia today and Steve Smith. Me and Will Jacks batted for three and a half hours together and an unbelievable catch brought them back in. Up against what we were like in the field, there is a massive difference.”
England are sure to mull changes before the third Test in Adelaide begins in 10 days’ time. A shuffle of the bowling attack is perhaps likely, with Mark Wood a possible returnee if over his injury, while Ollie Pope looks the most vulnerable of the batting order.
Jacob Bethell, the spare batter in the squad, made 71 for the England Lions against Australia A and is a candidate to come in at No 3.
Stokes is yet to win a Test match in Australia, experiencing a 5-0 defeat on his first tour in 2013/14. Asked by Matt Prior, another member of his squad, what he felt he could learn from that series, Stokes said: “Don’t panic. Don’t flap. Don’t waver. I know we can do this. I believe emphatically in the group.”
