England captain Ben Stokes accepts criticism but pushes back on 'arrogant' talk

The visitors came in for heavy scrutiny after falling to defeat inside two days in Perth, especially from the local media, after holding a strong position after the opening day.

England have been questioned for their lack of preparation ahead of the series when the only time in the middle was a three-day fixture against the Lions, and Stokes said the questions were valid but not everything is true.

"Look, you can call us rubbish, call us whatever you want," Stokes said. "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.

"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."

With an 11-day gap between the end of the first Test and the start of the second match in Brisbane next Thursday, the visitors have decided not to take part in a two-day fixture against an Australia Prime Ministers XI in Canberra.

Only Jacob Bethell, Josh Tongue and Matthew Potts - who did not play in Perth - were sent to the Manuka Oval to get some game time and the skipper once again defended the decision.

Stokes said: "We have a pink-ball match coming up in Brisbane, and we have an opportunity to play some pink-ball cricket. When you look at it just like that, I don't want to say it makes sense, but I totally understand it (that view).

"But there's obviously a lot more to it than just that. There's where it is, in Canberra, which is a different state from Brisbane. The conditions are going to be completely different to what we are going to have coming up.

"You take all the factors into consideration, the pros and cons, whatever it may be. We then discuss that and decide what we think is the best preparation.

"We have a few more days off than we planned after that Test. We had to go away and ask how we use these next few days wisely in order to be prepared for what it will be like in Brisbane.

"We schedule everything as if the Test match is going to go five days. It didn't go five days, so we had three days planned of training, and that obviously had to change. That's why now we have a longer build-up for this pink-ball game."

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