England captain proud of team’s attempts to force pace, targets squared series at The Oval…
BEN Stokes believes England did “literally everything we possibly could” to force a result in the drawn fourth Ashes Test at Emirates Old Trafford, delivering a “pretty much perfect” performance in a game they “completely and utterly” dominated.
England led by 275 runs on first innings after winning the toss, bowling Australia out for 317 before racking up 592 in 107.4 overs, and led by 61 runs heading into the final day with Australia five wickets down in their second innings.

But after rain had limited the fourth day’s play to 30 overs, it forced a total washout on Sunday, denying England the opportunity to push for victory and leaving Australia 2-1 up heading into the final Test at The Oval next week – thereby retaining the Ashes urn.
“The cricket we got in, in this game, was potentially an opportunity for a team to play it safe; to wait and see what the outcome might be,” Stokes said. “We didn’t do that. We definitely didn’t shy away from what we needed to do.

“We’re always putting our front foot forward and trying to press the game as hard as we possibly could. As a captain, that’s something that makes me very proud as a leader of the ten other guys out there. It’s just unfortunate that we managed to get three hours in over the last two days.”

The draw was the first of Stokes’ tenure as permanent captain, after 12 wins and four defeats in his first 16 Tests in full-time charge. “I think it’s the first draw for us, through no fault of our own,” he said. “We try and take the positive out of these things. We did literally everything we possibly could.

“The weather didn’t help us and we can’t change that. It’s a tough pill to swallow, knowing that’s the reason we sit here with a draw, but we’ve done everything we possibly could in the hours of play we managed to get. We were completely and utterly dominant throughout the hours of play we had. It’s a shame, but, oh well.”

Ben Stokes believes his team have “already done wonders” for Test cricket in England
When asked to compare how he felt in Manchester to his emotions after England’s defeats in the first two Tests at Edgbaston and Lord’s, Stokes said: “I think they’re completely different.

“We obviously played some brilliant cricket in those games, [but] we played some cricket that we knew we could have been better at. But in this game I can’t actually look back and think, ‘We could have been better there’, because we were pretty much perfect throughout the whole game.

“Bowling Australia out and then scoring the runs that we did at the pace that we did – I can’t really say we got anything wrong about this game, to be honest. It is tough to say we ended up with a draw when we’ve dominated the cricket that we’ve managed to get in.”(BBC Sport)