Stokes says England have point to prove

Ben Stokes has urged England to bounce back from their Trent Bridge thumping by South Africa and show how good they really are when the third Test at The Oval starts on Thursday.

England were thrashed by 340 runs with more than a day to spare at the Nottingham ground as South Africa levelled the four-match series in commanding style.

The hosts have now had more than a week to ponder on that defeat while they watched the England women lift the World Cup, and allrounder Stokes insists there was nothing wrong with the men's team's attitude at Trent Bridge.

"You take good performances and bad performances in your stride and I think it's all about how we come back in this Test which will prove how good of a side we are," he told Sky Sports at The Oval on Tuesday.

"Obviously, it wasn't an ideal performance from us as a team and we know that," the Durham star added.

"It's good that we managed to get time away and sort of look back on and assess where we went wrong and hopefully we can right the wrongs this week.

"No-one's ever going to get questioned in that changing room about their fight and desire for wanting to perform for England."

A lack of runs cost England dear in Nottingham, with Joe Root's side managing 215 in the first innings before collapsing to 133 all out second time around.

But with England having won the series opener at Lord's by an emphatic 211 runs, Stokes was confident that South Africa did not now have a huge advantage in terms of momentum. 

"It's 1-1, both games have been pretty one-sided and the team who won swapped around," he said.

"We've got two games left so we just need to make sure that we come out here and put in a better performance than we did at Trent Bridge and really take a front foot in the series."

The 26-year-old added: "I think the biggest question is just being able to adapt better.

"We obviously didn't quite get to grips with that in that last innings so I think the quicker we can learn to adapt to different situations the better off we will be."

Meanwhile Stokes paid tribute to England's women's team, who won a thrilling World Cup final against India in front of a sold-out Lord's on Sunday.

"It's an amazing achievement for them to win a World Cup in England," he said.

"It proves just how far the game has come for them. The amount of people that watched, the amount of coverage it gets," added Stokes, with England's men still to win a major 50-over global tournament.

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"I actually ended up watching a bit of the game as well so it was great to see them go from not looking like they were going to win it to (win).

"It was amazing to watch and, being an Englishman myself, it's always good to see an English team lift the World Cup," the New Zealand-born son of Kiwis rugby league international Gerard said.

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