End Of An Error

Ben Stokes has brought the curtain down on his international career. It has been filled with joy, headaches and controversies. While his retirement has brought about praise; it has also come under criticism and a questionable future for the national team.

Ben Stokes announced a shock retirement from international cricket on the penultimate day of England's Test series decider against New Zealand. His decision will bring a 15-year England career and a four-year tenure as Test captain to a close at the end of the ongoing third Test at Trent Bridge.

Stokes told his team-mates and the ECB his decision on Sunday morning, before the start of play. He was visibly emotional and choked up when he spoke in the dressing room; imploring his team-mates to "go out there and f***ing give absolutely everything for another two days." He was given a standing ovation by England's players and coaching staff.

He had hinted at the possibility that this Test could be his last in his pre-match press conference. Stokes was asked whether he was committed to seeing out the rest of his central contract, which runs until September 2027 and said only: "I am very clear that I am focused on the outcome of this week."

Stokes later expanded on his decision, telling Sky Sports that he didn't "have any more fight left in me" after reflecting extensively on England's 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia. He said that he had "burned myself out" in the months since and that he had started to contemplate retirement during England's win at Lord's at the start of the month.

The ECB announced the news shortly before tea on the fourth day at Trent Bridge; just after Stokes had completed the 10th over of a second mammoth spell. He received a rousing ovation from the crowd when he returned for an 11th and immediately had Zak Foulkes caught at second slip off the following delivery; prompting wild celebrations.

He was given a guard of honour by the on-field umpires, New Zealand's batters and his England team-mates before walking onto the field after the tea interval; ending with a congratulatory high-five and a hug from Joe Root, his close friend and predecessor as captain.

Stokes later opened the batting in an attempt to "cause chaos" and belted 30 off 20 balls before he was caught at mid-on. He finishes his Test career with 7 273 runs at an average of 34.46, including 14 centuries and 252 wickets at 30.98, including six five-wicket hauls; having played 122 Test matches.

Stokes' decision leaves England's Test team in a deepening crisis. They had won two of their last nine Tests.

His returns with the bat have declined in recent years but he has been England's best bowler over the past 12 months and they missed him badly in their heavy defeat last week. Nor is there an obvious successor: Root deputised at The Oval and could potentially fill an interim role while Harry Brook is his vice-captain but was overlooked last week; in the wake of his own off-field issues during the winter.

Stokes' dynamic with head coach Brendon McCullum was tested by their 4-1 defeat in Australia last winter and though both men have since insisted that they remain close; there was a clear divergence in their approaches. His relationship with ECB "suits" has long been frosty and was further tested by his perception of how they handled the recent nightclub saga.

Notably, Stokes wasn't quoted in the ECB's statement announcing his retirement, which featured comments from chair, Richard Thompson, and chief executive, Richard Gould.

Stokes confirmed that he will continue to play cricket elsewhere; both for Durham and on the franchise circuit. He hasn't played a limited-overs international since the 2023 World Cup in India and hasn't featured in a white-ball match of any description since injuring his hamstring while playing in the Hundred in August 2024.

He became only the second player, after Jacques Kallis, to complete a 7 000-run, 250-wicket double in Test cricket on the second day at Trent Bridge and has produced countless remarkable individual performances across his international career - most notably in the summer of 2019, when his heroic innings at Lord's helped England to their first-ever 50-over World Cup and he single-handedly rescued a one-wicket win in the Ashes at Headingley.

He took over from Root as England's Test captain in 2022, joining forces with McCullum and led them to 11 wins in his first 13 matches in charge while playing an ultra-attacking brand of cricket. Results have since tailed off and he will retire without leading England to victory in a series of more than three Tests.

In his finest moments, Ben Stokes would grind before the burst, scoring two off his first 66 balls at Headingley in 2019 before tub-thumping to an unbeaten 135. Holding on for a half-century in the World Cup final that same summer before a last, desperate release of power, 34 coming off his next 17 balls at Lord’s. He could make batting look harder than anything else and then, only then, would he play the shot of a lifetime.

The old magic with the bat hasn't been there for a while; making for a strange finish. This 35‑year‑old all-rounder – a fast bowler with a history of knee and hamstring troubles – ends with bowling as his stronger suit. Even before the wicket that coincided with the announcement of his retirement on Sunday afternoon against New Zealand; there was the eight‑over spell on Friday in unhealthy heat on a flat one, mixing up tight lines with a sharp bumper, taking three wickets to bring England back into the game.

His last year at the top included five‑wicket hauls against India and Australia, with 34 Test wickets at 25. On the other side, his only real joy was a 14th and final hundred on an Old Trafford pitch with no juice and he failed to break free in the Ashes, finishing the series with a strike rate of 37.

Stokes’s final knock was as an opener but he departs as a no. 7, having dropped down a spot at the start of the New Zealand series. Stokes explained at the time that it was a way to get the best out of England’s keeper-batter, Jamie Smith but also said: "I’m 35 tomorrow, getting towards it. Jamie’s going to be playing a lot longer than me." We probably should have taken the hint.

The enduring images will be with the blade. Beyond the obvious ones, a personal favourite is his first Test hundred on a cracked-open WACA pitch as a 22-year-old, pulling hard against Mitchell Johnson in an otherwise dreadful tour of Australia in the 2013/14 Ashes.

Like any up-and-comer, there was an adjustment period. His defence needed some work, he had some time as a no. 8 and after 20 Tests; the averages were the wrong way round: more than 40 with the ball and under 30 with the bat.

In the middle of all that, there was still room for Ashes six-fers at Trent Bridge and Sydney, Stokes getting the ball to hoop away from the left‑handers, a reminder that he had skill to go with heart.

If we want to find his prime, where it all clicked, it is quite clearly that 2019-20 period, when he developed the miracle‑man aura. Player of the series against Australia at home and then South Africa away; Stokes averaged more than 50 with the bat and less than 30 with the ball in Tests over a two-year stretch.

During his captaincy, there was greater focus on his role as the conductor leading a grand experiment and it seemed as if he was going to fade away as a bowler, his body suffering from wear and tear.

He didn't bowl for seven consecutive Tests in 2023 and 2024. Nonetheless, courtesy of his late burst after undergoing hamstring surgery, he finishes above Bob Willis with the most Test wickets as an England captain.

Maybe we are overdoing it with the numbers, even if Jacques Kallis is the only other man with more than 250 wickets and 7 000 runs in Tests. The spectacle was key – even if it was, at times, unnecessary.

He was thoroughly watchable when he suffered, too, making it clear on the stump mic where he had been hit when the ball thudded into his box. In or out of nick, he brought the thrills.

Stokes was less integral as a bowler to England in the shorter forms – it went badly at the death against West Indies in 2016 – and while he settled in at no. 5 for Eoin Morgan’s 50-over team, he scrambled around for the right role in the 20-over side. Fortunately for England, he managed to save his one and only T20 international half-century for a World Cup final in Melbourne; picked in that 2022 squad as their specialist superhero.

Stokes hasn't played white-ball cricket for the past two years, devoting himself entirely to the long form. With his single‑minded focus, he has burnt himself out. He says he will keep playing for Durham, thus reinventing himself as a man on the county grind, unable to let go just yet even if his time on the main stage is over. Even in retirement, he continues to surprise.

Andrew Strauss said he was "dumbfounded" by the timing of Ben Stokes's exit from international cricket as he paid tribute to a "genuine great" of the English game.

Stokes' decision to call time on his celebrated England career at the end of the ongoing third Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge was made public on the fourth day of the series decider.

The England captain, in the middle of a lengthy bowling stint, promptly took a wicket with his first ball afterwards.

Stokes, normally a middle-order batsman, then opened the innings but holed out as England lost several wickets in a manic pursuit of a stiff target of 373, with the hosts 103-4 at stumps and on the brink of a first series defeat at home in three or more Tests since 2012.

Strauss was England captain on that occasion, with the 49-year-old former opener ending his own career, in which he led his Test side to number one in the world rankings, on a low note as they were beaten by South Africa.

While he paid tribute to everything Stokes has achieved during his glittering career, Strauss feels the 35-year-old all-rounder shouldn't have revealed his plans during the third Test against the Black Caps with the series up for grabs at 1-1.

Former England captains and the nation’s leading cricket journalists are concerned that Ben Stokes has left their men’s Test team in a deep hole a year out from a home Ashes series.

Stokes’ retirement was announced as the 35-year-old was bowling shortly before tea on the fourth day of the third Test against New Zealand, which England went on to lose by 160 runs at Trent Bridge.

That defeat handed New Zealand their first victory on English soil in a three-Test series this century with the combination of another poor result and Stokes’ departure leading to alarm bells ringing out in the Old Dart.

Despite his diminishing returns with the bat, Stokes averaged 17.21 since the start of the Ashes last Australian summer and the nightclub incident that resulted in him and Gus Atkinson missing the second Test at The Oval; the captain wasn't the person most English cricket fans wanted gone.

So, now the calls for the heads of coach Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key to be placed on pikes are growing louder.

"There must be change after what we’ve seen here in terms of a cricketing sense now over a period of time," former England captain Michael Vaughan said on the BBC.

"I’ll be absolutely staggered if this leadership group is still together (after the New Zealand series)."

The 2005 Ashes winning skipper then went harder in his column for The Telegraph.

"I take no pleasure in doing this. I don’t like calling for heads. At the end of the Ashes I tried very hard not to. But I can’t cope with watching English cricket be so wasteful any more," he wrote.

"As a former captain I cannot stand by and watch us play like this against a New Zealand team who are down to their bare bones after injury and the retirement of Kane Williamson. This was a week of opportunity, and what they were always going to be judged on."

"There is so much skill and talent in the England changing room but it is not being harnessed at all. If all we have is to just keep going harder, and it’s been exposed again, on the back of chaos off the field, which has been happening too regularly, then it is time for change."

Former England batter, Mark Butcher, was certainly playing the cynic on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast at the end of the match. "You can hold two thoughts at once," the 71-Test left-hander said.

"You can be very sad that you will never get to see Ben Stokes play again. You can be very happy that you got the chance to see a player who could do the type of things that he could do to win matches single-handedly, to reverse inevitable tides in his favour."

"And you can be watching a Test match that is very important for England, and go, you’ve flushed it down the toilet."

Andrew Strauss was also feeling hurt by what he saw. "I’m not convinced that the whole thing was orchestrated the right way yesterday -- it seems like a huge distraction to a team that was battling to avoid a series defeat and the cricket in the last session very much had an ‘end of term’ feel to it," the last England captain to win in Australia wrote on LinkedIn.

"Everyone has the right to bow out on their own terms, and no-one has earned that more than Ben, but announcing before or after the game seems like a more sensible approach. When you are in the middle of a match, the only thing that matters is the performance of the team."

it was not Stokes’ knock that drew the most outrage. That came via Harry Brook, Stokes’ vice-captain who endorsed to be his successor. Brook slogged 21 off 9 balls before being caught at fine leg.

Vaughan was livid on commentary at the time for the BBC saying: "That is a pathetic Test match innings. Absolutely pathetic." While Sky Sports picked up the New Zealanders mocking Brook’s bizarre knock on the stump mic and asking: “what are they doing?”

If Brook, who is England’s white-ball skipper, is to be made captain despite his indiscretion with a nightclub bouncer the night before an ODI in Wellington last year and the fact Joe Root stepped in for Stokes at The Oval earlier this series; Vaughan believes there must be another change in the dressing room.

"Brook just cannot do that job if McCullum is still in charge. It is yin and yin. You cannot have that," Vaughan added in his column. "I am more than happy for Brook to do the job with someone else, but not McCullum. It would be chaos."

McCullum survived the axe despite England’s 4-1 Ashes series loss debacle.

Also Read: By The Skin Of Their Teeth

Former England captain, Nasser Hussain, seemed less convinced that change will take place before the first Test against Pakistan at Headingley on 19 August.

McCullum is contracted to lead the Test and white ball teams until the end of next year’s Ashes series. Hussain seemed resigned to McCullum staying in charge for another 12 months.

"England have lost seven out of nine Test matches. You can’t hide behind that,” Nasser Hussain told Sky Sports Cricket. “Brendon always comes across very positive and full of energy. I’d like a little bit more honesty at times."

"Like the last Test at The Oval, where he was asked about the plans - that one hour on the third day for the tail - and he said the plans were OK. They weren’t. They got the plans wrong."

"He was asked about the batting line-up [at Trent Bridge], and he said it’s all about, 'when the ball was hard, that’s a good time to score'. Well, actually, when the ball was hard was the difficult time to bat."

"England needed someone to play like Daryl Mitchell and grind out a score, so that today when it was a bit easier - as Jamie Smith showed - you can go out and smash it."

Those sort of calls for greater patience, maturity and game awareness with the bat were almost daily catch cries during the Ashes. It was a stark contrast to the early years of Bazball when Stokes and McCullum’s team were hailed for the all out attack approach with the bat.

The situation they find themselves in now has proven that was a little more than a sugar rush.

There were impressive series wins at home against South Africa and New Zealand as well as a series whitewash on some of the flattest batting pitches ever seen in Pakistan.

They also drew and won two series in New Zealand. Stokes’ men failed to defeat either Australia or India at home, while being beaten 4-1 away to their fellow members of the big three. Plus, they were dusted in Pakistan on turning surfaces last year.

They have not come close to making a World Test Championship final and sit seventh with four wins from 13 Tests in the current cycle.

"I feel a little bit disappointed and deflated," Hussain added. "For everything that English cricket has going for it, we are way down the World Test Championship table."

"The irony is, England have got a lot of New Zealanders in the backroom staff, and it’s actually New Zealand who are giving us the template on how you should prepare, play, behave and act as a Test nation."

"We’ve got to learn from what we’ve just seen in the last three Tests on the field. If you want to get better, sometimes look at the opposition and what they’re doing well and learn from them."

While the focus appears to mainly be on the backroom staff, England are likely to have a very different looking team in the first Test against Australia at Edgbaston next June.

Aside from the captaincy debate, Stokes’ departure leaves "a huge vacuum in the England team that will be impossible to fill," according to Strauss.

Many in England are quick to point to Australia’s ageing team but barring injury, Pat Cummins’ side is set to be far more settled coming into the Ashes.

The players Stokes and McCullum have backed to fill the void left by recently retired players have failed to nail down their spots. Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley were dumped from the top order after the tour of Australia.

While their bowling attack is a revolving door and Stokes, who has battled injury issues, has been their most reliable bowler in the past year - taking 42 wickets at 24.07 in that time.

Ollie Robinson, who was recalled and won man of the match honours at Lord’s but was unsighted for the remainder of the New Zealand series, and Jofra Archer will now take on the role of the senior statesman of the attack despite both struggling with fitness at times.

"More broadly, Stokes’ departure means England have lost another world-class player, continuing a three-year procession through the exit door," the BBC’s Stephan Shemilt wrote.

"Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Moeen Ali have all retired. Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood will probably never play Test cricket again. Joe Root is the only active England Test player to know what it is like to win an Ashes series, the sole survivor of the school of former coach Andy Flower."

Ben Stokes has backed Harry Brook to succeed him as England’s Test captain after bowing out of international cricket, saying the gifted batsman had his "100 percent support."

Stokes, however, appeared less enthusiastic about endorsing the future of England head coach Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key, the other two architects of a ‘Bazball’ era seemingly now at an end.

Stokes, asked if McCullum and Key were still the men to take England forward, replied: "What me, Brendon and Rob have managed to do over four and a half years, I’m not going to lie, it’s been quite an interesting ride."

"We’ve had some incredible highs and we’ve had some pretty low lows as well, but I feel we’ve always connected pretty well."

"I’m done now. I don’t have to make those decisions, I don’t have to be involved in all that kind of stuff. But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my four-and-a-half-year working relationship with Brendon and Rob."

McCullum, in a separate press conference, was asked if he had tried to talk Stokes, whose personality he said “almost transcends” cricket, out of his decision to quit international cricket.

"Yes but you know Ben, with no success whatsoever actually," replied McCullum, who suggested he had only found out about Stokes’ decision hours before it was announced.

"When he grabbed me yesterday (Sunday) morning when we arrived at the ground, he said 'Baz I’m done'."

"I was just like: 'Slow down, you don’t need to make any rash decisions right now, let’s just talk through this.' He said: 'Honestly, I’m done.' I felt like he was very definitive in his thought process, whereas in my head I hadn’t really had him at that stage yet, so I thought there was still room for negotiation. There wasn’t."

Unlike Stokes, McCullum stopped short of backing Brook to step up as captain, saying the decision was "one of those things we need to just take a bit of time to work out," that there were "many good candidates" in a squad that contains “some good strong leaders.

"We want to make sure that we go through the right process to make sure that we give the next captain every opportunity to be successful," he said. On his own future, the New Zealander stressed his desire to continue in the role despite calls from former England greats for a leadership overhaul.

"The project isn’t finished yet,” he said. “When you take jobs like this, you know there are going to be days where you have to navigate through tough moments, and keep projecting forward to what you think the vision for your side is and how you are able to shape that. And again, for me, my enthusiasm and my commitment to English cricket has never wavered."

Four years on from that philosophy being born against New Zealand at Trent Bridge as Jonny Bairstow went on a post-tea rampage and powered England to a chase of 299 in precisely 50 overs; Bazball died, at the same place and against the same team.

It was entertaining, sure but all a bit too frenetic. That was the difference. As intoxicating as the early stages of Bazball were and how wild they seemed at the time; there was an element of strategy there from a group of players who knew their games.

Head coach Brendon McCullum and captain Stokes' ultra-positive mentality was needed after one victory in 17 Tests beforehand, a morale-sapping 4-0 Ashes whumping in a series played in Covid bubbles and a period where England's best players were cherrypicked for white-ball cricket to the detriment of the Test team.

The red-ball side were in a right mess and so Baz and Ben proved just the tonic, with players the calibre of a peak Stokes, Bairstow, Joe Root, Stuart Broad and James Anderson not needing coaching per se; just freeing up after a trying time previously.

They were unable to win a marquee five-match contest against India or Australia under Stokes and McCullum across four tries; drawing 2-2 at home and pumped 4-1 away. Good Bazball put England in winning positions, only for bad Bazball to see those winning positions constantly frittered away; much to fans' disgruntlement.

Some of the cricket was just brainless, such as hacking short balls from Australia to men in the deep at Lord's in 2023 when the Baggy Greens had only gone to that tactic as a last resort with England flying and star spinner Nathan Lyon off the field injured.

The mindless driving on the up on the bouncy Australian pitches at Perth and Brisbane last winter contributed heavily to the Ashes drubbing, while the inability to beat India in a series across two attempts was also down to a raft of injudicious shots.

As the team changed, with some of those senior figures moving on and greener cricketers more in need of coaching taking their place, the approach needed to alter, too. But there were very few examples of England adapting to match situations, something their latest conquerors, New Zealand, are masters at.

England's off-field approach and lack of attention to detail was also panned by pundits, with the team playing just one warm-up game ahead of The Ashes - an intra-squad contest against the Lions on a pitch that in no way replicated what they would face against Australia in Perth. And that's even before we get to the drinking escapades that have plagued the team of late.

With Bazball failing regularly (it's seven Test defeats in nine now), the Stokes and Gus Atkinson nightclub saga and frequent questions over whether the Stokes-McCullum relationship had broken down after a divergence of opinions in Australia - coach wanted England to go harder, captain eager for more refinement - this final Test against New Zealand did have an end-of-an-era vibe.

Stokes then confirmed things were changing with his shock retirement - shock in terms of the timing, at 15:25, while he was in the middle of a bowling spell, if not the announcement itself - and when the batting malfunctioned in madcap style later that evening, it put the full stop on Bazball, despite McCullum wanting to carry on.

It's not just a captain England are losing in Stokes, either but a talisman, arguably their best bowler and someone who makes balancing the side easy. Without him, as we saw when a depleted team were annihilated at The Oval under Root, problems arise.

Bazball lifted England out of a funk four years ago. They now need to get out of a funk it created - with or without Baz.

A huge void has now been created. I predict a turbalent time period for England. They will find it hard to find another player of Ben Stokes' calibre. I believe that there's no other player that can mesh well with McCullum's preferred style of play. His clock is ticking towards its end.

I always knew that 'Bazball' wasn't sustainable. While it was exciting at first, It's mode would soon be figured out and tactics and game plans would be generated to combat it.

It was an error and a time bomb just waiting to explode.