Ben Stokes has promised that England will keep nothing in reserve as another pair of gruelling back-to-back Tests begins on Wednesday, with the home side needing to win both if they are to overturn Australia’s 2-1 lead and take back the Ashes urn. “Everything is on the line,” Stokes said. “There’s no point holding anything back.”
Stokes admitted of the Lord’s and Headingley Tests that “those two games back-to-back took quite a lot out of us”, and having had a week to recuperate they have little choice but to throw themselves into the next fortnight with no thought of the consequences should a series decider be on the line at the Oval in the fifth and final Test.
