Shell-shocked Stokes says Perth plundering must sink in

England captain Ben Stokes is urging his team to embrace the hurt of their crushing two-day Ashes loss in Perth, saying they can't afford to carry any baggage into the second Test in Brisbane.

Australia soared to an eight-wicket victory at Perth Stadium on Saturday on the back of a bowling masterclass from Mitchell Starc and a famous century from Travis Head.

Head was promoted to open in Australia's second innings in place of Usman Khawaja (back) on Saturday, and he made the most of the opportunity on the way to a sparkling 123 off 83 balls.

The 31-year-old cracked a 69-ball century - the equal sixth fastest in Test history - in a single session as Australia chased down the 205-run victory target late on day two.

The blink-and-you-miss-it victory gave Australia a 1-0 lead in the five-match series, and left England with plenty to ponder heading into the second Test, starting at the Gabba on December 4.

England took a 40-run first-innings lead in Perth after skittling Australia for 132, and the visitors were well placed at 1-65 in their second innings before imploding under the pressure from Scott Boland (4-33) and Starc (3-55) in a collapse of 5-23.

"I think we've got to let that whole two hours sort of sink in first," a shell-shocked Stokes said on Saturday night.

"And then reflect on it properly, without the emotion that's attached to what's just gone on there.

"Obviously, there's disappointment.

"But it's up to myself, it's up to Baz (coach Brendon McCullum) and some of the other senior guys who have a lot of experience in big series like these (to get the guys up), because you've got to let emotions like this sink in and it has got to hurt."

Stokes said the next part of the process after feeling the hurt was to get rid of it "as quickly as you possibly can" while also learning from the failure.

"Because when we get to Brisbane, we need to be back up to that mindset of how we came into the series before this game," Stokes said.

"I'm still very confident of our abilities and achieving the goal.

"So yeah, got to be so crucial about not taking any baggage from this result into Brisbane, because we need to win that one."

2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men's Ashes

First Test: Australia win by eight wickets

Second Test: December 4-8, The Gabba, Brisbane (D/N), 3pm AEDT

Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT

Australia squad (first Test only): Steve Smith (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue, Mark Wood