Stokes regrets 'has-beens' comments, admits captaincy errors in Perth Test loss to Australia: ‘I could have been a lot better’

Ben Stokes has finally admitted that his referring to former England greats like Ian Botham, Michael Vaughan and Graham Gooch as “has-beens” before the Ashes 2025 was a mistake. The England captain Stokes also admitted that he made errors as skipper in the first Test at Perth against Australia, which they lost by eight wickets inside 48 hours.

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Stokes created a controversy before the start of the Ashes when he labelled the former greats as “has-beens” while defending his team’s preparation ahead of the high-stakes series against Australia.

Stokes apologises for ‘has-beens’ comments

The 34-year-old Stokes has now said that his choice of words was “horrible” and that one day he would be the same.

“I got the words I said there completely wrong,” said Stokes. “Has-beens is a horrible word. It’s the only thing that managed to come out of my mouth at that moment. God, I’m going to be one of those one day. But it’s not at all what I meant by that.”

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Reflecting on the quick defeat in the first Test, Stokes took the responsibility as he admitted that his communication with his bowlers was not the best.

“I could have been a lot better as captain,” he said. “I am the person who makes decisions about how we go out there and operate and I am the one who gives the plans to the bowlers. I wasn’t as clear as I normally am. The key thing for me is to be completely crystal clear with my bowlers.”

While talking about England batters’ failure to dig in and play dogged innings in Test cricket, Stokes said that the team needs to improve in that area, but they are aware of their fallacies.

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“We keep it very simple, which is always looking to put the opposition under pressure, but also understanding the moment we need to absorb it. We know we are very, very good at the first bit and there are areas that we can be better doing the second bit.

“We do understand that. We don’t shrug it off and think: ‘Next time hopefully it will happen.’ When we say: ‘We’re going to stick to what we’re doing,’ it doesn’t mean we don’t think about all of this kind of stuff.”