Australian captain Tim Paine is understandably eager to successfully combat England all-rounder Ben Stokes during this week’s fourth Ashes series Test at Old Trafford in Manchester.

Stokes struck a sensational fourth-innings century in last week’s third Test at Leeds in Headingley to lead England to unlikely triumph.

‘I would do something differently with my field placings. There was times looking back at it where it was really obvious I should’ve had the field up and allowed Ben even to hit a couple of boundaries, so we had more balls at the tailender,’ said Paine.

‘But I didn’t do that. The mistake’s been made, we’ve moved on, we’ve learned from it, but that would’ve been the main thing I would’ve done differently. We made some mistakes, it happens; we’ve addressed it as a team, we’ve spoken about it honestly.

‘I was certainly one of those people who made mistakes, it happens in cricket. We’ve moved on and we’re here ready for a great Test match.’

Australia have dropped the left-handed Usman Khawaja amid the right-handed Steven Smith’s return. Smith was ruled out of the Leeds fixture due to a concussion, but has since recovered.

‘Usman’s obviously a key player in our side batting at No 3 and he hasn’t scored the runs that he or we would like. So with Steve coming back it was a tough decision to make on Usman, but we think he’s still got a lot of cricket left in him,’ added Paine.

‘He’s had a very good Test record over his career, and we expect he will bounce back pretty strongly. It’s a good thing for us that we’ve got a player of Usman’s quality on the sidelines – it means we’re getting our team to where we want to be and we want our selectors making hard decisions.’

The five-match series is currently locked at 1-1. Australia won the first fixture at Edgbaston in Birmingham and the second at Lord’s in London was drawn while England triumphed in the Leeds Test.

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