'Australia isn't place for weak men': 'Disappointed' Ben Stokes admits England failed in pressure; refuses to concede Ashes

England captain Ben Stokes said his team had not handled pressure in key passages after the defeat to Australia in the second Test at the Gabba on Sunday, but he added that the Ashes was not over.

Stokes said England had not been "able to stand up to the pressure" Australia applied as his side slipped to a 2-0 deficit in the series. He said England needed to show more fight but added that he still believed a 3-2 result was possible, which is the only way England can regain the Ashes.


He said dropped catches on the second evening were a major setback. Australia had gone from 290 for 3 to 329 for 6, still behind England's first-innings score of 334, but the home team made the most of multiple missed chances and pushed their total past 500 on the third day.

Stokes said he did not think there was a skills gap between the two sides but admitted England had not met the required mindset in important phases after two heavy defeats.

"Very disappointing," Stokes said at the post-match presentation. "A lot of it comes down to not being able to stand up to the pressure of this game, this format, when the game is on the line. In small passages, we've been able to bring the game back into some kind of control and then we've let it slip away. We've done that again here this week, and it's very, very disappointing, in particular, because of the ability of the players that we have in that dressing room."



"To me, it just seems to be a constant theme at the moment, that when you know the game is in a pressure moment, Australia keep outdoing us in those moments. They say Australia isn't a place for weak men. We're definitely not weak, but we need to find something, because we're two-nil down now we've got three more games to go, and we need to, sort it," Stokes said.

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England were also 2-0 down after two Tests in the 2023 Ashes. They recovered to draw that series, but a draw this time would not be enough to reclaim the urn. Only one team has won a series 3-2 after being 2-0 down: Don Bradman's Australia in 1936-37. Stokes said he still had full belief in his squad to win the remaining Tests in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

"We won’t shy away from the battle but we need to sort things out pretty quick if we want to bring the Ashes back to England."

The third Test begins in Adelaide on December 17.


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