The Australian media trying to provoke England captain Ben Stokes could backfire on the home side in the Ashes, says former fast bowler Steven Finn.<\/p>\n
The West Australian Newspaper called Stokes “Cocky Captain Complainer” after the all-rounder arrived in Perth this week before the series starts on 21 November.<\/p>\n
Finn, who was part of the last England side to win an Ashes series down under in 2010-11, told the PA news agency: “Ben Stokes thrives when he has a point to prove.<\/p>\n
“There are players you really don’t want to provoke because it makes them even better and even more determined. He falls into that category.”<\/p>\n
England have not won a Test in Australia since that 3-1 victory in 2010-11, with scores of 5-0, 4-0 and 4-0 in the three tours since.<\/p>\n
However, Finn says the leadership of Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum will not be “timid or meek” as England seek to regain the urn for the first time since 2015.<\/p>\n
He added: “You have be wary because the Australian press want to trip you up and find chinks in your armour, but if you’re sensible and respectful I don’t see any reason you can’t embrace the challenge of playing cricket out there.<\/p>\n
“Australians respect people who win. If you puff your chest out like we did in 2010-11 and push back, it can turn the other way.<\/p>\n
“By the time we’d bowled them out for 98 on Boxing Day, they really turned on Australia and it almost felt like they were supporting us.<\/p>\n
“That’s the challenge and it feels like something Stokes and McCullum could do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian media trying to provoke England captain Ben Stokes could backfire on the home side in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-249594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}