Ben Stokes ‘devastated and proud’ after first Test defeat to Australia

Ben Stokes declared himself “devastated” and proud after England lost the first Ashes Test by two wickets at the end of a thrilling final day of wildly careering fortunes that captivated a near sell-out Edgbaston crowd.

“We are not a results-driven team, but we are absolutely devastated,” Stokes said. “The lads are in pieces up there. But if that’s not attracting people to the game we love then I don’t know what will. In terms of what we put into this week, taking the game on from ball one, it would have been easy to play it a bit safer but we didn’t do that, not one individual. That’s something I’ve very proud of.”

Though England were within sight of victory before Pat Cummins, the Australia captain, and Nathan Lyon put together an unbeaten partnership of 55 to change the course of the game, Stokes insisted that defeat was “not a psychological blow at all”.

“If you look at the way we’ve played over the last five days, compared with other recent Ashes series, it shows we’re able to stand up to Australia in the way we want to play,” he said. “There were so many questions coming into the series around whether we would be able to implement this style of play against that team, not just with the bat but with the ball against some unbelievable batsmen. I think we’ve proved that we can.

“Losing sucks. Any game you play in sport, you always want to be the winner. But not putting the result at the top of everything that we think about actually really helps us play free-spirited cricket. When I think what it’s done for the series and the game, it’s hard to be too disappointed.”

Stokes described himself as “flying on caffeine” during a marathon final session to which he contributed seven overs and the wicket of Usman Khawaja, an