rewrite this title Carse hails ‘phenomenal’ Stokes as captain inspires England fightback

Brydon Carse heaped praise on England’s captain, Ben Stokes, for his leadership on and off the field, after a barnstorming fightback with the ball on the opening day of the 2025-26 Ashes.

Carse claimed the key wickets of Steven Smith and Usman Khawaja, before Stokes ripped through the lower-middle order with figures of 5 for 45 in ten overs, as England fought back from being bowled out for 172 by reducing Australia to 123 for 9 at the close, a deficit of 49.

It meant that 19 wickets had fallen, the most ever on the opening day of an Ashes series, as the action lived up to every ounce of the pre-series hype.

Carse, however, praised his captain for confronting the emotions of the series head-on, both in encouraging the team to walk to the venue at the start of the day’s play, and in inspiring their fightback with his calm response to their batting display.

“Stokesy came up with that idea last night,” Carse said of the team’s arrival, through a sea of fans with 51,531 spectators attending the opening day. “It was obviously what we decided to do. And luckily, we came in at about 8.30am, because I think if we were about a half an hour later, we might have got a bit more stick from some of the Aussie fans. It was electric … the energy throughout the day was awesome.”

Once inside the Optus Stadium, England won the toss and choose to bat first, only to lose Zak Crawley for a duck to set the tone for Mitchell Starc’s magnificent seven-wicket display. But despite being rolled aside in just 32.5 overs – the second-shortest Ashes innings, behind Australia’s 60 all out at Trent Bridge in 2015 – Stokes gathered his team at the innings change-over and set in motion their change of fortune.

“Stokesy kept it really simple,” Carse said. “We had 45-50 minutes before tea, and he said to the lads with the ball, just give everything. The way Gus Atkinson and Jofra [Archer] started was phenomenal. And then after tea, that messaging was pretty similar, just do it over a longer period of time.

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“While the ball was still new, there was a lot of pace and bounce in it. And, we said as a group of bowlers, it was just about hitting the wicket as hard as we could.”

The close-of-play scoreline vindicated England’s decision to field a five-man pace attack, which allowed Archer and Mark Wood – their fastest bowlers – to be used in short, sharp bursts that denied Australia a chance to settle at any stage of their reply. With Josh Tongue and Matthew Potts still waiting in the wings, Carse was confident that England could keep their pace levels high throughout the campaign.

“I haven’t played in a lot of attacks where we’ve had five seamers, but everyone does complement each other,” Carse said. “I’ve said before that the group is six, seven seamers, and we’ve all got different attributes. Hopefully that stands us in good stead throughout the series.”

Stokes, however, remains utterly fundamental to England’s hopes of winning an Ashes series in Australia for the first time since 2010-11. Having hinted at his readiness with six wickets in a low-key warm-up against England Lions last week, he showcased his golden arm with the vital wickets of Travis Head and Cameron Green, then picked off Alex Carey, too, on the way to his sixth five-wicket haul and second in Australia.

“His character and enthusiasm around the group, and the way it goes about his business is phenomenal,” Carse said. “Everyone looks up to him. He’s a great leader to have in our team.

“He’s been out here for the last two-and-a-half weeks, and as Ducky [Ben Duckett] said a couple of weeks ago, he’s in beast mode at the moment. Hopefully that pays off throughout the series for him.”

Stokes is back in Australia for his third Ashes tour, having debuted on the 2013-14 tour, 12 years ago. Carse, however, was sampling the occasion for the very first time, and admitted the atmosphere had been a step up from his previous experience in England colours.

“I felt nervous, excited … obviously almost going into a bit of the unknown, but just trying to soak it all up throughout the day. It’s been a phenomenal day. We’ll go back to the hotel and we’ll have a quiet night.”

The stage is set for another high-octane day on Saturday, and Carse admitted that – despite the shortcomings of their batting first-time around – their run-rate of 5.23 had demonstrated that batting could get easier once the first-day nerves and some of the pitch’s early life have gone.

“The first thing tomorrow is obviously to knock over this last wicket,” he said. “Then, we’ve seen some of the guys that have got starts and some runs today, the way that they went about it was obviously taking the positive option.

“I even thought Alex Carey, towards the end, was quite proactive and positive, and it put us under a bit of pressure. So going into the second innings, I think our batters will know what sort of gameplan they are going to use.”