'Call Us Rubbish': Ben Stokes Slams Critics For Calling England 'Arrogant' After Ashes Humiliation

Ashes 2025: Ben Stokes has given a perfect reply to all the critics after England lost the series opener to Australia by eight wickets on the back of Mitchell Starc's seven-for and Travis Head's 100 off 69 balls. The match got over within two days, and it became the third shortest Ashes match in history.

After this loss, former players like Ian Botham, Mitchell Johnson, and others slammed the Ben Stokes-led side's approach. Johnson had called them arrogant while writing in his column for the West Australian, whereas Botham said that the visitors should go back home if they don't want to change their approach.

Stokes then replied by saying that the experts slamming their performance is right, but describing them as arrogant isn't. He admitted that they made mistakes in the series opener, but also played well in patches.

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"Look, you can call us rubbish, call us whatever you want. We didn't have the Test match that we wanted to. We were great in passages of that game, but I think arrogant might be a little bit too far,” Stokes told reporters on Saturday.

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"But that's okay. We'll take the rough with the smooth. I'd rather words like 'rubbish', but 'arrogant', I'm not so sure about that,” he added.