Ben Stokes: England are changing so we can win back Ashes
The TelegraphA bullish Stokes acknowledged that an Ashes focus represents a pivot to his strategy. “I want us to be able to take a squad out there that I know is going to go at Australia,” said Stokes. I want this team to progress over the 18 months, so I’m focusing on that because I want us to go out to Australia and win the Ashes back.” Given the Ashes comes at the end of an epic 2025 that will By the time England travel to Australia, it will be a decade since they last won the Ashes, including a drawn series at home last summer which saw them come back from 2-0 down. Stokes wants to prepare younger bowlers for Australia “Yeah, definitely I think you know we’ve had so such a long period since we’ve played Test cricket and when you have a long period of time you obviously start thinking about how can we progress this team forward, because that’s what we want to do now,” said Stokes, when asked if his selections had the Ashes in mind. We’ve got some amazing young, talented bowlers coming through in English cricket and we feel giving them the opportunity to go out there and get experience at the highest level will put us in a much better position come Australia because we want to go out there and we want to get our own back.