Ben Stokes has hit back at Australian media for deriding an evangelical team talk he gave during last summer’s Ashes, saying that his England team live “rent free” in their heads.

This week the England and Wales Cricket Board released a three-part behind-the-scenes documentary called Our Take: The Ashes 2023, which follows Australia presenting their side of the story in Prime Video’s The Test.

Our Take takes viewers into the England changing room in the aftermath of the fourth Test at Old Trafford, where two days of persistent rain saw Australia cling on for a draw to confirm that they would retain the Ashes. Australia failed to win the series, despite having been 2-0 up, with England wins in the third Test at Headingley and the fifth at the Kia Oval seeing the series drawn 2-2.

“Everything we’ve done up until now isn’t going to stop because we haven’t managed to win the urn back,” Stokes said in his team talk. “The reward for our work isn’t what we get but what we become.

“And what we have managed to do is we’ve managed to become a sports team that will live forever in the memory of people who were lucky enough to witness us play cricket.

“I know it’s going to be a bit flat, I know it’s going to hurt that we go into the next game [at The Oval] not being able to get the urn back.

“But what we have done is something a lot bigger than any Ashes trophy could ever signify for this team – be the team that everybody will always remember.”

The team talk has drawn widespread derision in Australia, with Fox Cricket running a story with the caption on X, formerly Twitter, saying “…right, yeah, sure”.