Stay in the now, says skipper Stokes to his side ahead of the third test against New Zealand as he targets sweep.
Stay in the now is the message by captain Ben Stokes to his side as he aims for a 3-0 sweep against New Zealand.
This week’s Test match in Hamilton is the final overseas match for the England men before the 2025–26 Ashes, but Ben Stokes has warned his team not to let the trip to Australia next winter divert them.
The warning comes as England gets ready for their 17th Test match of the year, their final match against New Zealand at Seddon Park, where they hope to end 2024 with a 3-0 clean sweep. Prior to a crucial five-match series with India, they will play a one-off Test match against Zimbabwe in May. The captain has reaffirmed head coach Brendon McCullum’s advice to “be where your feet are” despite the Ashes’ bright future.
James Anderson, the top wicket-taker in Test cricket at the beginning of the home summer, was among the experienced core of players that left. In fact, Stokes clarified that the decision to re-shape the team was made in order to compete in the upcoming Ashes while discussing Anderson’s forced retirement following his 188th and last Test cap against the West Indies at Lord’s.
“We had to make some decisions around what we think is best for the team going into that Ashes series,” Stokes said at the time. “We want to go out there and we want to get that urn back.”
The motivation was good, even though there was a lot of backlash against Anderson’s pension. Despite pushing Australia hard in the 2023 home series, where Anderson claimed five wickets at 85.40, England was unable to win the Ashes for the first time since 2015 due to a 2-2 draw.
Stokes claims that he now feels bad about what he said at Lord’s. Although he maintains that the team has not been impacted by those remarks, it appears that the management is concerned that players may be looking too far forward and failing to see the difficulties that lie ahead.
“I know whenever we spoke about Australia there is a lot looking towards that, but there are still massive series before that,” Stokes said. “We have India. And I think through my own fault, I maybe spoke a little too much about the Ashes and putting too much emphasis on that series, considering how much cricket we had to play before that.
“I quite like staying in the present, in the moment. But it is quite tough when you’ve got an Ashes coming around the corner.
“I am in quite a few of those now. You always look at the calendar and think ‘oh it’s nearly here’. It’s just hard to avoid. But I think just making sure I keep my focus on being in the here-and-now and what we’ve got coming up. And then, when the Ashes is our next series, then we will focus on it.”