Ben Stokes said he was frustrated by England's failure to secure a Test series win against India but refused to blame Harry Brook for his dismissal, which sparked a dramatic collapse.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The five-match series finished 2-2 after India sealed a dramatic six-run win on Monday, with paceman Mohammed Siraj taking three of the four wickets to fall on the final morning.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
England, chasing a daunting 374 runs to win, had been cruising at 301-3 on Sunday, with Brook and Joe Root at the crease.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
But they buckled under pressure and lost their last seven wickets for 66 runs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
"It's been toe-to-toe pretty much for 25 days," said England captain Stokes, who missed the Oval game with a shoulder injury.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
"You know, two teams, two very good teams who have thrown everything at each other, left nothing out there.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
"From a cricket fan's point of view 2-2 is probably fair. Obviously, we're disappointed now to have not got the result that we wanted to give us a series win."<\/p>\r\n\r\n
England appeared home and dry on Sunday with Brook (111) and Root (105) at the crease.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
But their late stumble started when Brook, who had changed the tone of the match with his aggressive batting, chipped a bizarre catch to mid-off as he launched his bat in the opposite direction.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
England lost further wickets late on Sunday, including that of Root, as the tension rose before bad light and rain curtailed play with the result on a knife edge.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
- Brook dismissal -<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n England returned on Monday needing just 35 runs to win the series 3-1 with four wickets in hand but ultimately fell just short.<\/p>\r\n\r\n But Stokes defended the 26-year-old Brook, who scored 481 runs in the series, including two centuries.<\/p>\r\n\r\n His ton on Sunday came off just 91 balls with 12 fours and two sixes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n "Harry got us into that position by playing a particular way, putting the Indian bowlers under immense pressure to take them away from being able to consistently bowl in the areas that they wanted to bowl," said Stokes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n "I'm sure everyone was applauding him when he brought up his hundred in the way that he did. Some of the shots he played were unbelievable."<\/p>\r\n\r\n The skipper admitted six dropped catches in India's second innings had ultimately proved costly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n "But you can go over so many moments in a five-day Test match and all the time you spend out in the field and say, 'If this had been slightly different, we could have been in a slightly different situation'," he said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n "No one means to drop catches, obviously. But I think if we look back on that, you could say that those chances that we did put down did cost us.<\/p>\r\n\r\n "Back to Headingley (first Test), when we chased down those runs, India dropped quite a few chances off us, and that probably contributed to us winning."<\/p>\r\n\r\n Stokes said his team were in a "strong place" ahead of a bid to regain the Ashes in Australia, with that Test series starting in November.<\/p>\r\n\r\n "We have got some lads who are members of this team who have got some other responsibilities to fulfil with the Hundred and one-day international series," he said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n "I don't have to concentrate on that. We fly out in November, so we have got a lot of time between now and then to build on all the kind of things we have been speaking about before the series started."<\/p>\r\n",
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