Stokes points 4am denial after Australia declare of ‘pathetic’ beer snub
B
en Stokes was this morning compelled to disclaim that England had snubbed Australia after the 2 groups missed out on sharing an end-of-Ashes drink at The Oval yesterday, revealing the gamers as a substitute met up in an evening membership.
England claimed a dramatic 49-run victory late on day 5 to degree the sequence at 2-2 and produce the curtain down on an exciting summer time of Test cricket.
It is custom for each groups to mingle over a beer after the ultimate day’s play, normally within the house dressing room, however a breakdown in communications meant Australia had already left the bottom by the point their counterparts emerged to ask them in.
England say their very own end-of-series wrap, which incorporates household and pals visiting the dressing room, took longer than traditional as a result of retirements of Stuart Broad and Moeen Ali, with Australia stated to have discovered the doorways locked and finally given up on ready.
Reports within the Australian media claimed Pat Cummins’s aspect have been initially left riled by the incident, with an nameless supply within the camp telling Fox Sports: “We don’t really care, we’ve got the Urn, but after a hard-fought series it is pretty pathetic. Talk about the spirit of cricket.”
However, in a tweet posted simply after 4am this morning, Stokes stated: “To clarify… Our wrap took longer than expected because of multiple last time event’s. We decided to meet up in the night club rather than the dressing room.”
The end-of-series drinks had seemed in jeopardy earlier within the sequence, when, after Alex Carey’s controversial stumping of Jonny Bairstow within the Second Test at Lord’s, England head coach Brendon McCullum had stated the 2 sides would not be “having a beer any time soon”.
However, the sequence has since been performed in good spirit, with McCullum rowing again from that comment after the Oval Test.
Australia retained the Ashes after a second successive 2-2 attract England, however celebrations have been notably muted in the course of the presentation of the Urn, with the vacationers having not gained a recreation in nearly a month and several other key members of Cummins’s squad unlikely to tour once more in 4 years’ time.
“I think because we’ve had really good series, especially at home and we’ve had a lot of success, the bar gets raised,” stated Cummins (left), whose crew have been hoping to develop into the primary Australians to win on English soil since 2001.
“So, coming over here retaining the Ashes feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity but in 2019 we were all pretty happy about a retained Ashes. I don’t think we should lose sight of that.”