Ben Stokes has found himself in an intriguing place. He and Brendon McCullum have spent three years trying to take pressure off the team, and in the biggest series of his captaincy,y he’s dumped pressure back on them by talking about mental weakness in the side.

It’s as though he has ripped up everything they had been trying to do. He spoke in a very emotive and emotional way and was clearly full of anger after going 2-0 down in Brisbane.

I was obviously a different character from Stokes, but I never would have put it on the players in the way that he did in public. But I don’t think with him it would be a tactical ploy — he just comes out and says what he straightforwardly thinks in the media.

It might be that in the build-up to the Adelaide Test, he rows back a bit from that and reiterates the style they have been trying to play, but I will be intrigued to see how England approach it after their break.

Will the rest of the team be expected to bat as Stokes and Will Jacks did on the fourth morning in Brisbane when they were very defensive? Stokes set the tone early on in his captaincy by being very attacking. He’d come down the pitch slogging right from the moment he got to the crease.

All the talk had been about playing the way you want to play, but if in doubt, running towards the danger and taking the attacking option. In the early daysofn 2022, Stokes said I wouldn’t have got into his team. I asked him about it,t and he said I’d have had to do something that made him take notice. But I don’t know if he’d have said the same thing after Brisbane.

I think it’s too late for England to rip up the way they have been trying to play. This is not the rebuild of a side but the culmination of the whole McCullum-Stokes era, so I don’t think they can stray too far from what they’ve been trying to do.

For that reason, I wouldn’t be suggesting big team changes either — perhaps Josh Tongue for Brydon Cars,e but in general, all this is the side they’ve trusted, and they need to keep doing that.
What they need is total clarity on how they are going to play and how they are going to approach the game. That is what Stokes got to create in the coming days. There can’t be any self-doubt about what they should be doing. Stokes and McCullum must be very clear and sort out any confusion that their post-match comments might have caused.

This is the time when a team meeting can be really important. I know Harry Brook has said he doesn’t like them and doesn’t have them with the white-ball team, but I think they can have enormous value. It brings everyone together, and you can really discuss matters as a group, not just with the players or friends you usually chat with. There might be six or seven players who will really get something out of it.
It’s also not the time for England to be discussing whether they got their preparation right before the series. It’s too late, and they can’t change that now.

Whether or not the lack of matches before the first Test was the right decision, I think they are correct to have gone for a short break in Noosa, even if it might not look great to the average fan. In 2013-14, when I was captain, we wouldn’t have done that. I think I was too worried about what the media would think,nk and we hunkered down a bit and became scared of the outside. Whether it would have helped us to avoid losing 5-0 if we’d been more open, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have hurt. So I like that they haven’t hidden away.
You’re not going to fix things that have gone wrong with naughty-boy net sessions in Adelaide. What’s important now is what is going on in the players’ heads and how they are at the start of play on the first day.

As spectators and commentators,ors I think all of us have really enjoyed this team trying to break boundaries. They have done some amazing things, but there are a few values in Test cricket that have stood the test oftime. There is a reason why they have. The best sides have to adapt their game. You can’t just have one policy that fits every situation.

There are times when you can bat at six an over and reverse-scoop over the keeper’s head. But there are other times when the situation doesn’t allow for it.
Individually, players need to look at themselves in the mmirmirror know that they haven’t been good enough, and it’s them and only them who can turn things around. They need to look at the intensity they brought in the field in that short burst when Australia were knocking off their target and replicate that across an entire Test. Perhaps that short passage of play when Jofra Archer and Steve Smith were going at each other on the fourth morning can have the galvanising effect on the team that the Jonny Bairstow stumping had at Lord’s in 2023.

In rugby, people talk a lot about Test-match animals, players who have that toughness to compete in the hardest situations. That’s what England have been lacking — they have looked a bit soft in the field and not match-hardened.
The challenge for McCullum and Stokes is keeping the group together, and that is one of their strengths. The players need to be really open about how they are doing; they need to steer clear of criticising what has happened. It is easy to pick holes in things that have happened, but they need to stay focused on only saying things that will improve the team.

What positives can England focus on? It might sound silly, but their task is actually not much different to what it was at the start of the tour. Then, they needed to win three Tests to win the series; now, they need to win three Tests to win the series.

And things are not as bad as they have been in the past. In 2013-14, Jonathan Trott flew home after the first Test,andGr aeme Swann retired after the third Test. There is no sign of that sort of thing happening on this tour.
But what is so galling this time is that things have falinton in their lap. If they had been offered this team to play against for the first two Tests — no Pat Cummins, no Josh Hazlewood, no Nathan Lyon in Brisbane and an opener making his debut — they would have snapped your hand off. That’s what makes the performances so frustrating.