Nothing really @737Max. School boy stuff. Stopping Stokes from doing his normal thing between overs while he's at the crease. Both of them getting in his way. Under his nose and basically acting like dickheads. Stokes didn't care he just stood his ground and waited for them to fuck off. Nasser picked up on it during commentary. They did it a few times - Obviously thinking they can wind him up. They looked stupid believe me.
Interview with Ben Stokes gives his perspective
Revenge for the pain of previous defeats is the motivating force for
Ben Stokes in the Investec Ashes and helped focus his mind in the face of Australian provocation during the first Test in Cardiff.
He was a member of the side thrashed 5-0 in Australia in 2013-14 and admitted that the memories of that experience were fresh in his mind as England closed in on victory during the opening Test.
But Stokes knows that, if he is to enjoy consistent success in the series, he will have to retain his composure despite Australia's aims to get under his skin. He joked before the series started that it sounded like "
all I want to do is fight them" when pressed on his combative attitude, so while he dismissed an attempt to unsettle him while batting as "silly" he understands it is part of a tactic to disrupt his concentration.
In the incident, David Warner and Nathan Lyon stood in the crease at the non-strikers' end staging a mock conversation in an attempt to prevent Stokes from completing an idiosyncratic ritual - sweeping his bat on the ground - that he does at the end of each over.
"Brad Haddin picked up on me sweeping my bat when we were in Australia. He said 'you're still doing that then?' and I said 'yeah.' It's something I've done over the last two or three years. Every batsman probably has something they like to do and that's mine.
"Then Lyon and Warner thought it would be funny to stand in my way. That was pretty silly I thought really. Joe Root said that if they're trying to do that, they must be thinking we're on top. So if they're going to do that for the rest of the series then fair enough.
"I guess they were trying to put me off, but it just did not work. I just said you can stand there all day because I'm not moving until you move. If you want to get your captain's over rate down then so be it."
But more than Australia's attempts to unsettle him, it was the feeling Stokes had as England closed in on victory that most resonated.
Even though he emerged from the whitewash 18 months ago as a rare beacon of hope for England, when speaking before this current series began he said he still did not have many fond memories of it because of the result so was desperate to put the record straight.
"Revenge is a massive motivation," he said. "When Joe Root caught the catch at the end it was like revenge. When they were eight wickets down I was thinking about how we felt when we were getting beat every game. To be on the verge of winning when they were eight wickets down and after what they did to us in Australia was pretty cool."
