Follow UsIt was yet another dominant performance by Australia as they romped home to an eight-wicket victory in the second Ashes Test in Brisbane on December 7 (Sunday). It was a game of ups and downs for England, who let it slip on multiple moments in the match, and the hosts pounced on it.
England did well to put on 334 in the first innings, but then allowed the last three Australian wickets to notch up 128 runs, which proved to be costly. England then lost wickets at regular intervals in their second innings and set Australia just 65 to win.
Despite being 0-2 down in the five-match series, England captain Ben Stokes has vowed to come back stronger in the remaining matches and insists that his team is not weak.
"To me, it just seems to be a constant theme at the moment that when the game is in a pressure moment, Australia keeps outdoing us in those moments and they say Australia isn't the place for weak men. We're definitely not weak, but we need to find something because we're 2-0 down now, we've got three more games to go and, yeah, we need to sort it," Stokes said at the post-match presentation.
England are no strangers to being 0-2 down in the Ashes. As a result, Stokes believes his team know exactly what needs to be done from here on and feels his side can make a strong comeback.
"I absolutely believe in that dressing room. I have full belief in the players that are in there, the coaching staff and the people that are there to help make us better players, and what else have we got to do? We know we've got to win these next three games," Stokes said.
"We have been 2-0 down before, so we know what we need to do and we ain't going to shy away from the battle that we've got in front of us. But, yeah, we do need to look at where things have gone wrong in these first two games and sort them out pretty quickly if we want to get these Ashes back to England."
Stokes also rued England not being able to capitalise when they are ahead.
"I think 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 awa,y and 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," Stokes, who scored a fighting fifty in the second innings, said.
"And, yeah, I think we need to think a bit harder and a little bit deeper about those moments and what we're taking mentally into those and overall just show a little bit more fight when it's needed."
England will look to regroup ahead of the crucial third Test, which will get underway on December 17 in Adelaide.