Ben Stokes believes Ashes 2023 has ‘done wonders for English cricket’ despite Australia retaining the Urn

OLD TRAFFORD — Crestfallen captain Ben Stokes says England can still be heroes by signing off the Test summer with a win at The Oval this week after the Manchester weather killed of his team’s hopes of regaining the Ashes.

England were on course for a dominant victory in the fourth Test that would have tied the series at 2-2 before rain washed out all but 30 overs of the final two days to help Australia retain the urn.

It means a thrilling cricketing summer has been denied a blockbuster winner-takes-all decider in the final Testthat starts on Wednesday, with Stokes admitting: “I think it would have elevated everything that the series has already done for Test cricket, especially in England.

“There’s no doubt if we manage to get a result in this game, next week would have been a very, very special week in the history of English cricket, not just Ashes cricket. But I think what we’ve managed to do, up until today anyway, has already done wonders for cricket in England. I think we’ll still have the support we have done throughout the series next week.”

But the determination to sign off with a win in London – and deny Australia a first series win in England for 22 years – is still a motivating factor, as is the chance to further Bazball’s legacy.

“We want to leave the Test match summer with a win,” Stokes said. “The reward for your work isn’t what you get, it’s what you become. We’ve become a team that have been so unbelievably well followed and we will live long in the memories of those who have watched us.

“As much as I would love to be an Ashes-winning captain, I want this team to be a legacy team and, regardless of what happens over the next period, this 18 months will go down in history as one of the most exciting and proactive teams to go out there and represent England.”

Asked whether it was hard to take having lost the chance to win the series after suffering the first draw in 17 matches since taking over the captaincy, Stokes said: “The first two games we lost we obviously played some brilliant cricket in those games; we played some cricket we knew we could have been better at.

“But in this game I can’t actually look back and think we could have been better because we were pretty much perfect throughout the whole game where we played.

“Bowling Australia out and then scoring the runs that we did at the pace that we did – I can’t really say we got anything wrong about this game, so it is tough to say we ended up with a draw when we’ve dominated the cricket that we’ve managed to get in.”

And was there anything he would change about the first two Tests that Australia won?

“Probably the catch that I dropped off Nathan Lyon, honestly,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest one.”

England would have had Australia nine wickets down in their final-day run chase in the first Test had Stokes clung on to that tough chance in the deep.

But Australia went on to win that game by two wickets and it means that the tourists’ captain Pat Cummins, who hit the winning runs in that match at Edgbaston, is celebrating retaining the Urn.

“There won’t be huge celebrations,” Cummins said. “Maybe a bit of a pat on the back for retaining.

“There has been a lot of work going into this situation where a draw does get us to retain but there is a Test in three days so muted [celebrations].”