Can't really say we got anything wrong about this game: Ben Stokes

After winning the third Test, England had dominated the fourth Test with uncanny ease and needed 65 more runs to win the game against Australia to level the series 2-2 but rain didn’t relent, forcing the Manchester Test to end with a draw. With a game to go, the Ashes would still have been alive now had England managed to eke out a win, but now irrespective of the result of the final game, the Urn will remain with Australia. 

For England, that’s not easy to accept, as skipper Ben Stokes admitted that it was a difficult pill to swallow for they didn’t do anything wrong in the entire 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. The weather didn't help us, we can't change that. It's a tough pill to swallow, knowing that's the reason we sit here with a draw,” Stokes said at Old Trafford.

Stokes has been an open advocate for a refreshing brand of cricket that England has now kind of patented, but what is even more impressive is the fact that Test cricket has become the new vocation among younger audiences. For the sport had lost the tribe to football and other sports, and now that the style of cricket is slowly bringing them back, Stokes said a win at Old Trafford would have made history in English cricket going into the final game.

"I think it would have elevated everything that the series has already done for Test cricket, especially in England. There's no doubt if we managed to get a result in this game, next week would have been a very, very special week in the history of English cricket, not just Ashes cricket. But I think what we've managed to do, up until today anyway, has already done wonders for cricket in England.

"I think what we've managed to become is a team that people will remember. I said well before the series started, that I wanted our team to try and play a brand of cricket that people will always talk about. I think regardless of how the series ends up, people will always talk about us.

"For me, being the leader of this certain type of cricket, to sit here and say that we've achieved that over the last 18 months, I find it very easy to be able to get out of bed and go out to play cricket."

Even though the result didn’t go their way, England are going to play a positive brand of cricket and win the last game of the series. "We will have to get over this disappointment and focus on that game as it is massive for us, 2-2 sounds better than 3-1. The mentality we have within the dressing room is go out and win. Everything we do is to be positive. 

"You go back to the Pakistan series, the New Zealand series, we could have taken it easy in the last game but we didn't, even though we had already won those series. We know we can't get (the urn) back. All we can do is draw the series and that is what we will be trying to do."