Skipper Ben Stokes defends England’s preparation for the Ashes series in Australia

England’s Ben Stokes smiles during warm up

Skipper Ben Stokes has defended England’s lack of warm-up matches ahead of the first Ashes cricket test against Australia in Perth beginning Nov. 21.

England is aiming to break a 14-year winless run in Australia. Stokes and fellow veteran Joe Root have never won a test match in Australia, and there’s no survivors in this squad from England’s 2010-11 series win.

Australia has won 5-0, 4-0, and 4-0 the last three times England has traveled Down Under for the most anticipated series in world cricket.

England’s only preparation in Australia for this series is a three-day match against the England Lions, essentially an England A team, starting on Thursday at Lilac Hill.

That decision has drawn criticism from Ashes greats on both sides such as Ian Healy, Ian Botham and Geoffrey Boycott.

But Stokes believes England’s preparation will be more than sufficient.

“There’s obviously state (domestic first-class) cricket going on at the moment,” Stokes said yesterday. “Time has got to be taken into consideration as well. Some of our squad members were playing the (white-ball) series in New Zealand.”

England was swept 3-0 by New Zealand in a series of one-day internationals.

Most of Australia’s Ashes test players are tuning up in those first-class matches this week, but it come at a cost for the host nation. Fast bowlers Josh Hazlewood and Sean Abbott had to leave New South Wales’ game against Victoria yesterday for medical scans. Hazlewood was cleared and will join the test squad in Perth. Abbott was ruled out with a left hamstring strain.

Stokes also said cricket’s “jam-packed” schedule makes it more difficult to prepare for a five-match test series than “10, 15, 20, 30 years ago.”

“We put a lot of time and effort into how we prepare for every series, and that hasn’t changed with this one,” Stokes added. “Come the 21st of this month, we know that we would have done everything possible that we could have done.”

Root, who is the No. 1-ranked batter in test cricket and is the second-highest scorer in the format all-time, has not scored a century in 14 tests in Australia.

“He’s the greatest English batter that the nation’s seen,” Stokes said. “He’s been in phenomenal form over the last two, three years. He’s not come out here to score a 100 in Australia, he’s come out here to contribute to the team.”

Stokes said his team should not be overwhelmed playing in Australia.

“Coming to Australia for the Ashes is a lot different than anything else when you’re playing,” he said. “There’s a lot more that goes on away from the cricket itself.”

Australia skipper Pat Cummins, a paceman who has already been ruled out of the first test while he recovers from a back injury, sounded optimistic about long-time pace partner Hazlewood’s fitness when he fronted the media in Sydney.

“They both got scans,” he said of Hazlewood and Abbott, according to the Nine Network. “I haven’t 100% got across all the details but I think Joshy was pretty chipper.

“Obviously we’re a week away from the test series and you always kind of err on the side of caution and they wanted to find out what was happening before pushing it.” MDT/AP