Ben Stokes was this morning forced to deny that England had snubbed Australia after the two teams missed out on sharing an end-of-Ashes drink at The Oval yesterday, revealing the players instead met up in a night club.
England claimed a dramatic 49-run victory late on day five to level the series at 2-2 and bring the curtain down on a thrilling summer of Test cricket.
It is tradition for both teams to mingle over a beer after the final day's play, usually in the home dressing room, but a breakdown in communications meant Australia had already left the ground by the time their counterparts emerged to invite them in.
England say their own end-of-series wrap, which includes family and friends visiting the dressing room, took longer than usual due to the retirements of Stuart Broad and Moeen Ali, with Australia said to have found the doors locked and eventually given up on waiting.
To clarify…
— Ben Stokes (@benstokes38) August 1, 2023
Our wrap took longer than expected because of multiple last time event’s.
We decided to meet up in the night club rather than the dressing room
🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌 https://t.co/jJ4Qw3uCnm
Reports in the Australian media claimed Pat Cummins's side were initially left riled by the incident, with an anonymous source in the camp telling Fox Sports: "We don't really care, we've got the Urn, but after a hard-fought series it is pretty pathetic. Talk about the spirit of cricket."
However, in a tweet posted just after 4am this morning, Stokes said: "To clarify… Our wrap took longer than expected because of multiple last time event's. We decided to meet up in the night club rather than the dressing room."
The end-of-series drinks had looked in jeopardy earlier in the series, when, after Alex Carey's controversial stumping of Jonny Bairstow in the Second Test at Lord's, England head coach Brendon McCullum had said the two sides wouldn't be "having a beer any time soon".
However, the series has since been played in good spirit, with McCullum rowing back from that remark after the Oval Test.
Australia retained the Ashes after a second successive 2-2 draw in England, but celebrations were notably muted during the presentation of the Urn, with the tourists having not won a game in almost a month and several key members of Cummins's squad unlikely to tour again in four years' time.
"I think because we've had really good series, especially at home and we've had a lot of success, the bar gets raised," said Cummins (left), whose team were hoping to become the first Australians to win on English soil since 2001.
"So, coming over here retaining the Ashes feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity but in 2019 we were all pretty happy about a retained Ashes. I don't think we should lose sight of that."
