What went so wrong? Aussies rue missed chances as Stokes plays innings of career
AUSTRALIA will continue to lament its missed opportunities which proved costly at Headingly.
It started with the fielding, where the Aussies seemed rattled.
Marcus Harris, fielding at third man, dropped a top-edge off Ben Stokes with 17 runs still to get. The England star also nudged twos when he should have been limited to ones.
“I wouldn’t say we were rattled. No doubt there was pressure – that’s Test cricket – and it was close, tight, the crowd was loud. That was as hard as it gets for a touring side,” Paine said.
“Sometimes people make mistakes and we made a couple today. In the end it cost us the Test match. It comes down to taking your opportunities.
“Today, we missed a few and a guy played out of his skin to take a Test match away. That can happen, that’s OK.
“Hopefully we’ll be in those positions again and next time we take those chances – but mistakes happen.” players are going to do the same thing and we turn up to Manchester or our next training session in a much better frame of mind rather than have guys sulking or whatever you want to call it. It hurts, deal with it, move on.” confirmed Stokes was out.
“I don’t think I’ve got a referral correct the whole series so I can’t sit here and bag the umpires,” Paine said.
“We have got to focus on what we can control and umpiring decisions isn’t one of them. I’m sure it is something that will be written about but we also had other opportunities to win the game.” those things. It is a really difficult period of time to captain,” Paine said. “I don’t think anyone has done it perfectly. I certainly didn’t. I don’t claim to have. But when a guy is going like that, you bring the field up, he’s hitting them for four or six anyway.”
AUSTRALIA’S bowlers had no answer to Ben Stokes.
Josh Hazlewood got hit for back-to-back sixes in one over, Pat Cummins got slapped over the fence too.
Stokes smashed his final 74 runs from just 42 balls, and Paine said if he had his time over, he would have made sure he talked to his bowlers more about their mindset.
“At times when the field gets spread, they go a bit defensive,” he said. “I still want our bowlers to be running in thinking about getting them out regardless of the field. But again, that’s Test cricket.”