“It hurts and sucks” - Ben Stokes opens up after Australia retains the Ashes

On Sunday, December 21, Australia, led by Pat Cummins, retained the Ashes after defeating England by an 82-run margin to seal the five-match Ashes 2025-26 series 3-0 at the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide.

Speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony, England skipper Ben Stokes asserted that the dream that England came here with is now over. However, he assured English fans that his team would give their best in the last two games of the series.

“Obviously, the dream that we came here with is now over, which is obviously incredibly disappointing. Everyone’s hurting and quite emotional about it. We’ve got two more games to go and that’s where the focus needs to switch to now. We came here with a goal in mind and we haven’t been able to achieve that. It hurts and it sucks, but we’re not going to stop,” Ben Stokes said at the post-match press conference. 

Moreover, Stokes revealed the actual difference between Australia and England, adding that the former have been able to execute things consistently with the bat, ball, and on the field. On the other hand, the England captain added that his side could show up in passages across three games.

“Australia have been able to execute things on a much more consistent basis than us with the ball, with the bat, and in the field. This game of cricket is based on how you bat, how you bowl, and how you field, and they’ve outdone us on a much higher level. We’ve shown it in passages across these first three games, and again this week, we did incredibly well to take it to where we did to in this fourth innings. I thought we were on for another heist this morning when Jamie and Will were playing so well, but we can't do what we came here to do,” he added.

Chasing 435 runs in the fourth innings, England were in the game on the fourth day of the third Test. Jamie Smith (60), Will Jacks (47), and Brydon Carse (39*) kept their side in contention for a good period of time. However, Mitchell Starc's three-wicket haul dashed the visitors' hopes.

“There’s some good stuff to take out of this game. Looking back on this game, losing the toss and going in to bowl, keeping Australia to an under-par score, not being able to respond with the bat the way we wanted to when we knew we had a great opportunity to put a big score on the board. Then to fight back the way we did with the ball yesterday morning to take six wickets for 60 or something, we were confident we had a very good chance of chasing it down because we knew how good the wicket was,” he observed.

“Losing those three wickets at back end of the day yesterday set us back a bit. All the stuff from last week around the stuff that I wanted to see a bit more from this team, I can definitely say I’ve seen that this week. Some of the guys lower down the order stuck in and showed that courage, fight, and responsibility that I was asking for. Yes, we’ve been on the wrong side of the result, but we can take a lot from this game into the remaining two games,” he stated.

“We’ve learnt a lot about ourselves as a team. We haven’t been consistent or relentless enough, our execution hasn’t been anywhere near good enough to come to Australia and compete with these guys,” he concluded.

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