England captain Ben Stokes says he is “annoyed at himself” while revealing he apologised to his team following an uncharacteristic outburst in the field during England’s upset loss to Pakistan.
England dropped the second test in Multan after losing eight wickets in the space of two hours, but it was during Pakistan’s second innings where Stokes lost his cool.
The skipper, who was returning from a hamstring injury, couldn’t hide his frustration with his team due to several costly mistakes in the field which included a number of dropped catches.
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“No one means to drop catches but it just proves how important catches are in these subcontinent conditions, they don’t come along that often,” Stokes said on Sky Sports.
“I actually apologised to the group last night as you’re right, it’s the first time in my captaincy that I’ve let my emotions and how I was feeling with the way the game was unfolding show in my body language.
“I owned up to that and was very annoyed at myself for letting that out. It’s something that I don’t want to do or be seen to be doing so I apologised to the group about that.
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“Poor old me, I was a tired, grumpy old man last night! You won’t see that happen again.”
Like many of his teammates, Stokes didn’t have his best game in the second Test, scoring 1 and 37. However his coach Brendon McCullum says Stokes can hold his head high.
We all know how passionate Ben is, how much it means for him to play for England,“ McCullum said.
”We’ve seen that through his bloody-mindedness to get back from injury which was significant, and to do so in a nine-week timeframe and to have his first TM in extreme conditions, 40 degrees, and be able to give what he gave to the side.
“I think maybe that’s where some of that frustration led to, certainly it wasn’t directed at any of the players.”
The third and deciding Test match gets underway on October 24 in Rawalpindi.
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