England won’t abandon aggressive approach despite South Africa defeat, Ben Stokes insists
The hosts were blown away inside three days at Lord’s with the Proteas inflicting a first defeat of the new era under Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum
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Your support makes all the difference.Ben Stokes dismissed any suggestion that England will tone down their newly-aggressive approach in the wake of the humbling defeat at the hands of South Africa in the first Test at Lord's.
The hosts were blown away inside three days at the home of cricket with the Proteas inflicting a first defeat of the new era under new captain Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum.
'Bazball' has seen England adopt a positive and proactive approach with bat and ball to great effect winning all four Tests so far this summer against New Zealand and India heading into this one.
Stokes though isn't going to change how his side want to play off the back of one bad outing.
"Obviously we're disappointed to lose, it would be silly for me to say anything different," he said afterwards. "If we dive into this too much, one result in a three-match series, what we're not then doing is looking forward to what we've got coming ahead. We've got two more games to bounce back from this and then hopefully look to take the series 2-1."
Stokes dismissed the idea England should look at their gung-ho style of play, saying: "Absolutely not. I look at the captains before me, captains after me, they're always going to get criticised at certain times about the way that they want to go out and play.
"That's just part and parcel with life I guess. We know, when we perform to our capabilities, we can go out and put in some incredible performances, like everyone's been able to see in the four games before this one.
"This isn't a wake-up call or anything like that, just unfortunately we weren't able to execute in the way we wanted to play this week and South Africa were better than us."
The skipper played down the impact of England's lack of first-class warm-up matches, telling Sky Sports: "I don't think I want to use that situation as an excuse whatsoever.
"We've all played a lot of cricket. There could be an opportunity maybe to put a first-class game in there for the lads to go off and just get out there in the field."
South Africa captain Dean Elgar added: "This is a brilliant day for us. I definitely didn't think that waking up this morning. I was thinking the guys have got to bat long and hard and try to extend that lead of ours.
"Then, when it's our turn to bowl, got to put the ball in the right area, thinking it might flatten out, but Anrich Nortje's spell was something that just broke the back. He ran in with a lot of intent and a lot of anger and it was great to watch from where I was fielding. I'm sure it wasn't nice to face."
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