NEW DELHI: England captain Ben Stokes may have heaved a huge sigh of relief after his team finally tasted victory in an Ashes Test by snapping an 18-match winless streak in Australia, but he expressed a little disappointment with the way the fourth Test unfolded.
England had suffered defeats in the first three Tests, allowing Australia to retain the Ashes within just 11 days of play across Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.
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However, England hit back in emphatic fashion, wrapping up the MCG Test inside two days on Saturday - mirroring Australia's dominant victory in the series opener at Perth.
It was the first time the same series has had multiple two-day Tests in 129 years.
"Yeah, we've got the win, but honestly, it's not what you want, really," Stokes told TNT after the match. "The conditions were heavily sided to one skill of the game, which is not ideal, and the game lasts less than two days.
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"But when you take all that away, you are confronted with conditions, and what you've then got to do is decide on what's the best mode of operation to be able to give you the most chance of success. Chasing 170 was always going to be difficult, but I thought the way that we took the game on from the outset was the exact way that we needed to do that."
The England winless streak had dated to the 2013-14 Ashes series, which Australia won 5-0. Since England convincingly won the 2010-11 Ashes 3-1, England had lost 16 matches and drawn the other two of their 18 Tests Down Under over a period of nearly 15 years.
Needing 175 second-innings runs to win and 98 after the tea break, England reached their target at 178-6 to clinch the match and send thousands of its long-suffering but faithful "Barmy Army" fans into frenzied celebration.
