Ben Stokes hails ‘special’ England win in Australia despite MCG pitch controversy

Ben Stokes says it is a ‘special feeling’ for England to seal their first Ashes Test win in Australia since 2011 despite huge controversy over the pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

England avoided any danger of an Ashes whitewash with a two-day victory Down Under to cut the hosts’ lead to 3-1 in the series with one game to go.

But England captain Stokes has acknowledged the circumstances were ‘not ideal’ for his side, on a surface heavily favoured towards the bowlers.

‘Yeah, we’ve got the win, but honestly, it’s not what you want, really,’ Stokes told TNT Sports after the match.

‘The conditions were heavily sided to one skill of the game, which is not ideal, and the game lasts less than two days.

‘But when you take all that away, you are confronted with conditions, and what you’ve then got to do is decide on what’s the best mode of operation to be able to give you the most chance of success.

‘Chasing 170 was always going to be difficult, but I thought the way that we took the game on from the outset was the exact way that we needed to do that.’

There had only been three two-day Test matches in Australia prior to this Ashes series – but we’ve now seen two in the past month.

The knock-on effect of the two-day Test is set to be costly for Cricket Australia with Channel 7 claiming that £12.4m could be lost on broadcasting revenue and day three and four tickets.

Former England captain Michael Vaughan labelled the MCG pitch as a ‘joke’ on social media and insisted that it was ‘selling the game short’.

Stokes: An amazing feeling to win the Test

Despite the controversial conditions, Stokes was left delighted at England securing their first away Ashes win in 15 years.

‘It’s a special feeling,’ Stokes said. ‘Me and Joe [Root] have been on a few tours and it’s not gone particularly well.

‘But an amazing feeling. I think in particular, the couple of days in the build-up to this Test match, it was obviously a tough time for us as a team and certain individuals.

‘But the way in which we were able to keep the focus on the most important thing, which was the cricket out there, was pretty exceptional I think.

‘So to come out here and put in a performance in the way that we did, a lot of credit has to go into the way that myself and the senior boys handled that situation and made sure we handled the situation in the way we did.’

England faced a wave of criticism in the build-up to the match following their controversial mid-series break in Noosa.

Questions were asked about the tourists’ drinking culture during the trip, with Ben Duckett thrust into the spotlight for a video that went viral.

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