England’s red-ball captain Ben Stokes has finally broken silence on the Ashes debacle, which saw the Three Lions go down by 1-4 margin against Australia. Taking to his Instagram handle, Stokes called the last three months the “hardest period” of his time as the skipper. The England all-rounder also vouched his confidence in taking the English side forward as they now look ahead at the Test summer.
While the 34-year-old called leading the side his “greatest honour”, he further added, “the last 3 months have without a doubt been the hardest period of my captaincy journey; it’s tested me in so many different ways, and I’m sure every other captain has gone through this as well.”
ECB to continue with Stokes & McCullum despite Ashes setback
This statement from Stokes comes following the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) Chief Executive, Richard Gould, confirming the decision to continue with the England all-rounder, managing director Rob Key and coach Brendon McCullum despite the Ashes 2025-26 debacle. “Moving people on can sometimes be the easy thing to do. That’s not the route that we’re going to take,” Gould said. “I’ve seen the driving ambition and determination that we’re lucky enough to have within our leadership group to take the lessons from the Ashes and move forward,” he continued.
Notably, Stokes, in his elaborated message, also wrote, “Baz, Rob and myself have the passion and desire to take this team forward, we are going to give you everything we have, we know we made mistakes along the way and we have learnt from those mistakes, you learn more from failure than success.”
While Stokes has not played since suffering a groin injury in the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney in January 2026, he is set to feature for Durham in the County Championship ahead of this season’s home Test programme. Moreover, England have three Tests scheduled against New Zealand in June before a trio of matches against Pakistan in August and September.
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