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Travis Head’s remarkable century led Australia to an eight-wicket win.
Rory DollardSaturday 22 November 2025 12:28 GMT
Ben Stokes takes questions after the match (Robbie Stephenson/PA) (PA Wire)
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England captain Ben Stokes admitted he was left “shellshocked” after Australia crushed his side in two days at Perth, the fastest Ashes defeat in over a hundred years.
It was a painful dose of deja-vu for the tourists, who were swept aside for 164 on Saturday having been bundled out for 172 in the first innings. All in all they lost 20 wicket in 67.5 overs, a recipe for disaster at the highest level.
An inspired bowling display, including a quickfire five-for from Stokes, meant Australia fared even worse in their first attempt as they were bowled out for 132 but a whirlwind century from Travis Head settled matters emphatically in the home side’s favour.
Set 205 to win on a pitch that had been chewing batters up and spitting them back out, Head smashed a 69-ball ton and finished with 123 in just 83 deliveries.
England’s five-pronged pace attack went from breathing fire to running on fumes as the volunteer opener, who stepped up to replace the injured Usman Khawaja, clattered four sixes and 16 fours.
His frenzy ensured there would be no need for the doors of Perth Stadium to open on Sunday, leaving Stokes to contemplate a first two-day defeat against their oldest rivals since 1921.
“I’m a little shellshocked at the moment. I didn’t see that one coming,” he admitted, minutes after watching opposite number Steve Smith hit the winning runs.
“It’s quite raw. We need to let emotions like this sink in and it has got to hurt. There’s a lot of disappointment when you walk off having been on the losing side.
“At the moment I’m still in a little bit of a ‘wow’ phase after what Travis Head has just done to us. It was a pretty incredible, special knock from Travis. I thought 200 was a pretty defendable score…but he had an answer for absolutely everything.”
The premature conclusion means England face an extended break before getting the chance to put it right in the day/night second Test at Brisbane starting on December 4.
Stokes has no doubt that is now a must-win affair if the campaign is to remain on track but backs his squad to show some steel.
“I will wake up tomorrow and still be incredibly disappointed but all my focus and energy will be going into getting the group back up,” he said.
“You have to get rid of it as quickly as possibly while learning from it. When we get to Brisbane we need to be back to that mindset we had before this game. We are still very confident in our abilities in achieving a goal and we cannot take any baggage from this result into Brisbane, because we need to win that one.
“We have been behind in series before and we’re good at dealing with emotions.”
England lost 11 wickets for single figure scores, including a pair of ducks from Zak Crawley and one in each innings from Joe Root and Harry Brook.
But Stokes remains adamant that attacking cricket is the best approach and was lukewarm on the suggestion that senior players should travel to Canberra to take on an Australian Prime Minister’s XI next week. That fixture has been passed along to Andrew Flintoff’s England Lions, though there is no reason Test players cannot be freed up to join the trip.
“We don’t do anything for optics, that’s the way we are,” he told Test Match Special.
“We believe in our methods. We get it right sometimes and we get it wrong sometimes. We’ll let the dust settle on this and, over the next couple of days, we’ll work out whether a couple of guys going to play in that game is the right thing or whether keeping the team tight and making sure morale doesn’t drop is the alternative. We’ll work on that and come up with a plan.
“I haven’t even thought about it just yet. I planned on us being here a little bit longer than two days.”
