With the Ben Stokes led England losing the Ashes within 11 days of the ongoing Ashes, it means that England’s long wait to win an Ashes series in Australia will continue. England had last won an Ashes in Australia in 2011 and with the Ben Stokes led England team trailing 1-3 in the Ashes, it means that the side will go home without winning the Ashes. With the England team under coach Brandon McCullum and Ben Stokes losing 13 Tests in the last two years, Stokes admitted that the results have sort of gone ‘downhill’ and the team will reflect on that post the Ashes with the present time not the time to do that.
“(The 2027 Ashes) is so far away from where we are right now. We’ve got a big Test match to play here and we’ve got a big gap before our next series. All that time for reflection on this tour, right now isn’t the time to do that. There’s a lot of time (later) to think about things and put our heads together and come up with something that we think is going to get this team back in the direction that we were in two years ago. Results and the way in which we were playing so consistently in terms of getting on the right side of results, that’s sort of gone downhill,” Stokes told reporters on Saturday ahead of the fifth Test at Sydney Cricket Ground.
England had scored their first Test win in Australia since 2011 with the four-wicket win over the hosts in the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne last week. With the Ashes being lost, England would look to score their second win of the Ashes this season and their second consecutive win in the Ashes in Australia. Stokes talked about how the England team is seeing the Sydney Test as a big game. “This is a big game because we’re walking out there representing England. The Ashes, unfortunately for us, hasn’t gone the way we wanted it to, but we’ve got one more game in a big series and it’s a real big one for us.So although we can’t get the thing that we came here for, we’ve still got a chance to go there and win a game of cricket for England.” said Stokes.
England’s Ben Stokes applauds the crowd after England defeated Australia on Day 2 of their Ashes cricket test match in Melbourne, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Hamish Blair)
The current series has seen Australian pacers being consistent with Mitchell Starc being the leading wicket-taker of the series with a total of 26 wickets apart from Scott Boland taking 16 wickets in the series so far. Stokes showered his praise on the Australian pacers. “I think the one thing you take away from the Australia team in particular is the amazing execution with the ball that has put us under heaps of pressure,” he said. “There’s a big difference between what Australia are able to do with the ball compared to what we’ve been able to do with the ball. We know that, we own that, we haven’t been able to execute as well as we would have liked to,” said Stokes.
