![\"Captain](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/d4284445cbd4b052705b233dd6371efb10af5378.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBen Stokes finally has reason to smile. After three disappointing Tests and weeks of backlash following a heavily criticised break in Noosa, England has finished on the right side of the ledger.<\/p>\n
The relieved English skipper gave credit to his players for being able to stay focused amid negative press about the team\u2019s preparation and professionalism. He also gave credit to the voice of the Barmy Army. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Captain Ben Stokes applauds the English fans.Credit: AP<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just constant noise going on, constant chants,\u201d Stokes said at the post-match presentations on Channel 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the guys out in the middle, they hear it, they feel it, and they (the Barmy Army) know it obviously means a hell of a lot to us as players that we\u2019ve got this win.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I know how special the feeling is for the guys over there right now (in the crowd). There might be some pretty sore heads tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stokes admitted it had been a challenging tour, following losses in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a quite a lot thrown our way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just made sure that we stayed focused on the task at hand, which is to come out here and try and beat a very good Australian team. And we managed to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
England were set 175 runs to win in their second innings, and did so on day two with four wickets in hand. Thirty-six wickets fell across two days on a pitch that had 10mm of grass covering.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the way that the cricket was played, you know, it was obviously short and sharp. It was it was very, very, very tricky,\u201d Stokes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe looked to go out there and take the positive approach. It was heavily favoured towards the bowlers.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the way that we went about today was exactly the right way of trying to chase that (total) down.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t let bowlers run up and just be able to constantly land it on the area that\u2019s dangerous. I thought the way that we, you know, combated that was brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stokes said he was a \u201cproud captain\u201d to lead a team that has broken a long drought.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been not only a tough tour for us as a team out here, but obviously, everything that\u2019s gone before us,\u201d he said of England winning its first Test in Australia since 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo to be stood here now, and you know, be part of a team who\u2019s managed to win a game out in Australia after a long period of time, it is a pretty good feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
He praised bowler Josh Tongue and young batsman Jacob Bethell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Stokes finally has reason to smile. After three disappointing Tests and weeks of backlash following a heavily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-375260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375260","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=375260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}