England cricket captain Ben Stokes expressed shock following their defeat to Australia in the first Ashes Test, emphasising the need for quick recovery before their next match in Brisbane. England missed their chance to secure their first Test victory in Australia in 15 years, suffering a defeat within two days at Perth Stadium.The English team struggled against the bowling of Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland, while Travis Head’s impressive 123 runs led Australia to an eight-wicket victory.“Little bit shell-shocked, it was pretty phenomenal from Head,” Stokes said. “It’s pretty raw, pretty emotional, but that was some knock. We tried three or four different plans to get him, but when he’s going like a train he’s very hard to stop.”Stokes found some encouraging aspects in their performance, particularly noting their bowling in the first innings that restricted Australia to 132 runs.“The way in which we bowled yesterday was phenomenal. A lot happened on day one, a good day for the bowlers,” he said. “It’s a tough one as we felt we were in control. We’ll let this sink in, but we’ve got four more games. It’s a long time before Brisbane, we’ll go away and put in the graft.”The next Test match is scheduled to begin on December 4 in Brisbane.With numerous players experiencing their first Ashes series, Stokes faces the challenge of maintaining team morale.“Yeah, I think we’ve got to let that whole two hours sort of sink in first and reflect on it properly, without the emotion that’s attached to what’s just gone on there,” he said, referring to Head’s knock. “Obviously there’s disappointment when you come off the field being on the losing side. So that’s up to myself. It’s up to some of the other senior guys who have a lot of experience in big series like these because you’ve got to let emotions like this sink in, and it has got to hurt. But also you’ve then got to get rid of them as quickly as you possibly can, while also learning from it.“Because when we get to Brisbane we need to be back up to that mindset of how we came into this game, still very confident of our abilities and achieving the goal. It’s crucial about not taking any baggage from this result into Brisbane.”
