Stokes has been part of an Ashes-winning team once since making his debut in 2013. He has created some all-time great Ashes moments, most notably his epic unbeaten 135 to win the Headingley Ashes Test of 2019.<\/p>\n
The all-rounder is assured of his place in English sporting history for his exploits in Test cricket and match-winning performances in each of the 2019 50-over World Cup and the 2022 T20 World Cup finals.<\/p>\n
If the 34-year-old were to join the other five post-war leaders to leave Australia with the urn, Stokes would be in the conversation as one of England’s greatest cricketers.<\/p>\n
“I know this is a series that probably gets highlighted above all the other series that I’ve been a captain in,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But it will not diminish anything of the time, energy and effort I’ve given to being an England captain.”<\/p>\n
England could unleash their fastest attack in a Test by naming five pacemen in their XI for the series opener at Perth Stadium.<\/p>\n
Mark Wood, Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse and Stokes can all touch 90mph.<\/p>\n
The battery of fast bowlers available to the tourists for this series is a result of long-term planning to arrive in Australia with the pace England feel is required to be successful here.<\/p>\n
“If we went back two years before we picked the squad, and that’s what we had available to us, we would have bitten your hand off,” said Stokes.<\/p>\n
He added England are “fortunate” to have been able to select bowlers who can “add skill” to their pace too.<\/p>\n
Stokes is back to fitness after recovering from a shoulder injury that kept him out of England’s last Test, against India in July.<\/p>\n
The Durham man has not completed any of England’s past four series because of various injuries and his fitness will be crucial to hopes of regaining the urn.<\/p>\n
“I’ve come into the series fully taking on that all-rounder role with bat and ball,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve worked very, very hard to make sure when I am playing I’m able to give that full commitment to that role, just because I know how much of an impact it makes towards the team and how it balances the side out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stokes has been part of an Ashes-winning team once since making his debut in 2013. He has created…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-295081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}