00:00The England cricket team suffered a 253-run defeat to New Zealand in the second test in South London at
00:07the Oval.
00:08The visitors levelled the three-match series 1-1, chasing an unlikely target of 463.
00:15England resumed the final day needing a miracle, but were bowled out for just 209 after a batting collapse on
00:23the final day of the test.
00:25Matt Henry starred for New Zealand, taking 11 wickets across both innings, including five in England's second innings, to earn
00:33a player-of-the-match honour.
00:36Joe Root battled hard and became only the second player in test history to reach 14,000 test runs during
00:45the match, but it was to no avail.
00:46England were ultimately outclassed.
00:48The defeat sets up a winner-takes-all-series decider at Trent Bridge later this week.
00:57Now, Joe Root took the captaincy on from Ben Stokes.
01:00Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson were left out of the squad.
01:04The ECB were looking into an investigation at a nightclub following the victory in the first test.
01:10Now, the ECB have since confirmed that Ben Stokes or Gus Atkinson, neither of them, were to blame for the
01:16incident.
01:16They've been called back into the side for the third test, and Ben Stokes is set to captain his England
01:22side in the third and final test as we enter a deciding match against New Zealand.
01:29Oh, yeah, pretty interesting couple of weeks.
01:33But look, I think the main thing about me being back, Gus being back, is for us to obviously focus
01:43on the main objective, which obviously is the cricket this week.
01:48There has been a lot going on, there's no doubt about that, there's no hiding away from that.
01:52But as I say, one of the big things about me coming back into the environment and Gus coming back
01:57into the environment is making sure that we try our best to get the teams focused on to what the
02:05most important thing is,
02:06which is what we need to go out there and do this week.
02:08You know, it's 1-1 in a series, we've got one more game left.
02:11And the importance of the result of this game, I think, is the one thing that we need to be
02:18concentrating on.
02:20Look, I think you look at the whole situation, it's affected, you know, quite a lot of people in many
02:29different ways.
02:30You know, it's affected Rob, it's affected Brendan, myself, Gus, and also the team and, you know, fans of English
02:39cricket as well.
02:39So, look, we've been through the process, we've got to the end of it.
02:47Me and Gus are back here in the team now.
02:49I'm back in my role as captain, Gus is back in his role as one of the senior members of
02:55the team.
02:55And we know that we've got a big role to play this week in trying to get the series win.
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