Call us rubbish, but arrogant is a bit too far – Ben Stokes

England captain Ben Stokes has taken exception to some of the criticism aimed at his team following their two-day defeat in the Ashes opener in Perth. England were in a strong position on Day 2, leading by 105 runs, but lost nine wickets for just 99 runs and ended up squandering the match. Since then, they have faced heavy criticism from ex-cricketers and experts about their approach, with Mitchell Johnson using the word 'arrogant' in his column.

Stokes responded ahead of his team's first training session in Brisbane, the venue for the second fixture: "You can call us rubbish, call us whatever you want to. I think arrogant might be a little bit too far, but that's ok. We'll take the rough with the smooth. I'd rather words like 'rubbish', but 'arrogant' I'm not so sure about that."

He added, "We didn't have the Test match that we wanted to, but we were great in passages of that game. We know we've got an incredible fanbase who come out here and support us. They want to see us win. We want to win. We're absolutely desperate. They're absolutely desperate. We're all on the same wavelength. We're doing absolutely everything within our powers and using our time as best we can to allow us to go out there to try and achieve that goal."

England have also faced criticism for not sending their first-team players to the pink-ball warm-up clash against Prime Ministers XI in Canberra, which serves as an ideal build-up to the second Test—also a pink-ball game—starting December 4 at the Gabba. Stokes defended the decision, citing the 'completely different' conditions.

"I do understand it. We have a pink-ball match coming up in Brisbane, and we have an opportunity to play some pink-ball cricket. When you look at it just like that, I don't want to say it makes sense, but I totally understand it. But there's obviously a lot more to it than just that. There's where it is, in Canberra, which is a different state from Brisbane. The conditions are going to be completely different to what we are going to have coming up," Stokes argued.

He continued, "You take all the factors into consideration, the pros and cons, whatever it may be. We then discuss that and decide what we think is the best preparation. We have a few more days off than we planned after that Test. We had to go away and ask how we use these next few days wisely in order to be prepared for what it will be like in Brisbane. We schedule everything as if the Test match is going to go five days. It didn't go five days, so we had three days planned of training, and that obviously had to change. That's why now we have a longer build-up for this pink-ball game."

England have already started training with the pink ball in Brisbane, a routine they are expected to follow for the next four days.