Before Saturday, the English camp had not conducted any media aside from Mark Wood’s appearance on a podcast with ex-teammate Stuart Broad and a few dead-batted questions from reporters at Perth airport.
England will have two afternoon training sessions at the Gabba and two evening practices under lights to prepare for day-night Test conditions.
“I do understand it [the criticism],” Stokes said. “We have a pink-ball match coming up in Brisbane, and we have an opportunity to play some pink-ball cricket. When you look at it just like that, I don’t want to say it makes sense, but I totally understand it [that view].
“But there’s obviously a lot more to it than just that. There’s where it is, in Canberra, which is a different state from Brisbane – the conditions are going to be completely different to what we are going to have coming up.”
England’s dramatic second-innings collapse, and Travis Head’s blistering century, overshadowed the fact the tourists looked likely winners at lunch on day two in Perth.
Despite widespread calls to temper their aggressive approach to Australian conditions, Stokes insisted England remained committed to the strategy of all-out attack they have adopted under Brendon McCullum since 2022.
Joe Root at training in Brisbane on Saturday.Credit: Getty Images
“Could we have been better at executing what we wanted to do? Definitely,” Stokes said.
“But again, we’ve got a mindset of playing the game which is looking to put the opposition under pressure while also trying to absorb that.
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“Sometimes when you go out there and you make a decision, it doesn’t always play out or work in the way that you want it to.
“And that’s what the key for the rest of this tour is: making sure that we stay true to our beliefs of how we play our cricket.
“But also, we do know that we could have definitely been a lot better in certain areas throughout that Test match.”
