No place for weak men in my dressing room – Stokes

Captain Ben Stokes questioned his England players’ mentality after their crushing defeat by Australia in the second Test, saying his dressing room is “not a place for weak men”.

Though England showed some fight on day four, they were thrashed by eight wickets in Brisbane to go 2-0 down in the five-match Ashes series.

Stokes denied England’s problems are down to skill and instead questioned why they have been unable to capitalise on key moments.

“Do we need to start thinking about what mentality we are taking into those pressure moments?” Stokes said.

“When we are on top we are great and when behind the game we are also very good but when that moment is neck and neck we are not coming out on top on enough occasions.”

Stokes led the resistance on the final day by surviving 152 balls for 50 runs but England lost 4-17 after batter Will Jacks was dismissed, leaving Australia a chase of 65 in their second innings.

“There is a saying that we have said a lot here – Australia is not for weak men,” Stokes told BBC Test Match Special.

“A dressing room that I am captain of is not a place for weak men either.”

In a separate interview, Stokes said his players were not “weak” but former England captain Michael Vaughan said “a few better get ready” after the comments.

Speaking after the defeat, Stokes also:

Stokes repeated his “weak” message in three separate interviews. He described failures in pressure moments as a “constant theme”.

“When the game is in a moment of neither here nor there, Australia have managed to get through those periods and outdo us,” he said.

Those moments can be traced back to the fifth Test against India in the summer, possibly back to the 2023 Ashes when England blew good positions in the first two Tests and also went 2-0 down.

England’s recent struggles include:

Stokes said he would have conversations with his players and believes they can come from 2-0 behind to win for the first time in an Ashes series.

Their preparation for the highly anticipated contest has been questioned throughout, with England playing only one, intra-squad warm-up match before the series and skipping a pink-ball warm-up before the second Test.

“We had five intense training sessions leading into this game,” McCullum told BBC Test Match Special.

“Sometimes there is a tendency to overdo things to make up for it. If anything, we trained too much.

“As we all know in this game it is played in the top two inches.”

There are 10 days until the third Test begins in Adelaide on Wednesday, 17 December (23:30 GMT, 16 December) and they now head to Noosa, a resort town on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, for a four-day break away from cricket.

England’s trip to Noosa was pre-planned. They will fly to Adelaide on Saturday and train on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

“We have been here for five weeks and it’s been pretty full-on on the field, off the field, and as physical as this game is, a huge part of it is the mental side,” said Stokes, who took a break from the game for his metal health in 2021.

“I know what the game can do to you when the game is not feeling right or going well. Trust me when I say it is so important for teams, when they do get an occasion or an opportunity to be able to go away as a team – and almost put the pressures of this aside for a couple of days.

McCullum said England, who were also 2-0 down in the 2023 Ashes and came back to draw 2-2, were “slow to adapt” to conditions at the Gabba.

“We have to make sure to stay tight as a group and iron out a couple of the chinks that we have shown in the last two Test matches,” he said.

“When you come to Australia you can’t be below your best. You need to make sure you seize every opportunity.

“In this Test match there were a few moments we had the ascendancy with the bat and we let that slip. And there were times where we didn’t execute with the ball as well as we should have.

“Clearly our catching was an issue as well. [It is] very hard to beat Australia at home if you’re going to be deficient in all those three areas.”

On the preparation, he added: “We all have to find a way that ensures that we feel prepared physically, technically and we are ready for the battle, but also to make sure we are fresh and make sure we can make those decisions in the heat of the games.”