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It was England\u2019s best away Ashes since 2010-11, breaking their match drought by winning the Boxing Day Test and posting more than 300 four times \u2013 a feat they hadn\u2019t achieved here once since that summer. <\/p>\n
But with the world-class players Australia had out, the defeat will sting as much as the whitewashes of the past. <\/p>\n
‘The real Uzzie’: Khawaja on legacy | 02:32<\/p>\n
When Australia claimed victory in Brisbane to go 2-0 up, Stokes told broadcasters at the post-match ceremony his dressing room had no place for \u201cweak men\u201d.<\/p>\n
But, after the final day of the summer, Stokes said he was reserved in his feedback, concerned there could be a dressing room collapse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very tough and interesting thing to get right, you\u2019re constantly thinking about things to say to individuals, constantly thinking of things to say to a group,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest thing to sort of get right is, \u2018Is that message you\u2019re delivering right now, is that going to do them more good or not what you want it to?\u2019 If that makes sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in the middle of the series, particularly when you go two-nil down and know you need to win the next three games to win a series, you\u2019re always a bit mindful and a bit cautious of saying completely what\u2019s on your mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you don\u2019t want things to just implode in the dressing room, so look, there will be a few things that the senior guys come together and say and be quite honest and truthful together going forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if I am being completely honest, doing something like that in the middle of a series, I personally, think it would have done more harm than good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch all of Starc’s 31 Ashes wickets | 10:47<\/p>\n
England\u2019s next Test series is against New Zealand back home in June.<\/p>\n
Stokes stopped short of making any bold declarations surrounding his team make-up but expected the upcoming review to have a positive influence.<\/p>\n
\u201cSix months is a lot of time for a lot of work to be done and a lot of conversations that, I guess, you need to have with elite sportsmen when things haven\u2019t gone too well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat filters throughout the whole group, it\u2019s not just the players, even myself, I have not been up to the levels I expected of myself as an all-round player and as a captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I can tell that to myself, there\u2019s nothing wrong with being truthful to yourself and there\u2019s also nothing wrong with being truthful to teammates. <\/p>\n
Australia seal 4-1 series win at SCG | 03:20<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, what I want and what I care about is making sure while I am in this job I doing everything I possibly can to allow players to become as good as their talent is.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes speaking the truth and saying stuff you don\u2019t want to hear is sometimes the best thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been told a lot of things over my career that I thought was a bit over the top but I can look back on those moments \u2026 and go, \u2018I was told that because that person genuinely wanted the best for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fear of an internal implosion shaped England captain Ben Stokes\u2019 silence as Australia tightened its grip on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11638,64,63,689,213781,651,33217,213785,213782,1208,213060,2057,16271,2105,213786,31024,673,1736,3583,677,55989,701,213784,213783,196191,38711,38704,85,670,64414,70541],"class_list":["post-402583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ashes-series","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-bold-declarations","tag-brisbane","tag-dressing-room","tag-dressing-room-collapse","tag-dressing-room-implosion","tag-england","tag-english-batting-ranks","tag-europe","tag-final-day","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-match-drought","tag-mitchell-starc","tag-new-south-wales","tag-new-zealand","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-press-conference-video","tag-queensland","tag-reserved-feedback","tag-room-issues","tag-series-defeat","tag-series-victory","tag-series-win","tag-sports","tag-sydney","tag-tyler-lewis","tag-usman-khawaja"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402583","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=402583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}