England haven’t let Ben Stokes down – Marcus Trescothick
The tourists fell to 213 for eight in the third Test as Ashes defeat loomed large.
Ben Stokes watched his England side crumble in the face of Ashes pressure yet again in Adelaide but assistant coach Marcus Trescothick insisted the team had not let their captain down.
The scene was set for a struggling batting line-up to finally make its mark in response to Australia’s middling total of 371, but instead of cutting loose they were cut down to size.
In sweltering heat of more than 40 degrees, and on a true day two pitch holding no demons, they scraped together a grossly underwhelming 213 for eight.
The entire top three was in the pavilion inside 10 overs and the rest were not far behind as Pat Cummins, Scott Boland and Nathan Lyon split the spoils in conditions that should have stretched them to the limit.
By the end of play Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith and Will Jacks all averaged under 30 for the series, a grim reflection of their collective struggles.
Stokes was only just above that mark as he finished on 45 not out, dropping anchor for 151 painstaking deliveries and hitting only three fours as he banished the caricatures of ‘Bazball’ for the playbook of Geoff Boycott.
It came at a physical cost as he cramped up in the heat, limped between the wickets and dug deep in stifling temperatures, but Trescothick rebuffed the suggestion that the team had failed their captain by failing to match his resolve.
“I’m not sure ‘letting him down’ is the right terminology to use to be honest. Everybody is trying 100 per cent and working as hard as they can,” he said after a day that took England ever closer to an irretrievable 3-0 scoreline.
“It’s not like anybody is going in to any game and not working as hard as anybody else. They just haven’t had the success they wanted at this stage. But success comes and goes, it’s not guaranteed or given that you’ll succeed in every series.”
“Ben has chosen to play in that fashion today and gone about it in a way he thought was right. Everybody has the opportunity to try and read the situation and judge what they’re going to try and do; the players will play in certain ways and we trust them to do that.
Asked if the other batters had got their judgments right, Trescothick defied the evidence on the scoreboard by responding: “Pretty much, yeah.”
As for Stokes, whose willingness to push his body to the brink has become a feature of the all-rounder’s career, Trescothick added: “He’s tired and a bit dehydrated. He was cramping most of the last session.
“It’s kind of what he does and it almost focuses him. He’s at his best when he’s in that frame of mind, when it’s really tricky and tough, when there are conditions or situations that other people don’t succeed in.
“He found it hard getting enough the volume of carbohydrate drink into him because he was sweating so quickly. He couldn’t drink as much as he wanted through feeling a bit ill. But he dug in, worked hard and batted out for a long period of time.”
