It was one of the most extraordinary scenes witnessed in a career littered with them. Ten or so minutes before tea on the fourth day against New Zealand, about to start the 11th over of another marathon spell, Ben Stokes stood at the top of his mark as a ripple of applause turned into a standing ovation.
Minutes earlier the England and Wales Cricket Board had released the news that Stokes would be retiring from internationals at the end of this deciding third Test. The players had been informed by Stokes before the start of play and now the public was in on the secret, people rising as one to roar as their champion all-rounder set off on another bullocking charge to the crease.
And then it happened. The ball climbed off the deck, Zak Foulkes poked outside off-stump, and a flash of crimson flew low into the hands of Harry Brook at second slip. Cue pandemonium, Stokes haring off towards the old pavilion in celebration as his teammates tried desperately to keep up, eventually catching up and engulfing him in a flurry of hugs, back slaps and unbridled joy.
The match was already creeping out of reach but in that split second no one inside Trent Bridge gave two hoots. Stokes had just delivered an “I was there” moment to go with the World Cup final in 2019, the Headingley heist later that summer, and countless others along the way. They used to ask Ian Botham who wrote his scripts. Stokes has been penning them himself for more than a decade.
It was a jaw-dropping development in one sense but less of a surprise looking back at the signs. After a clear disagreement with the ECB over its handling of his exclusion from the second Test on disciplinary grounds, this return always felt like an uneasy peace: a load of blokes pretending to be cool with each other when you sensed they were anything but. Stokes had declined to commit to the job beyond this match, while he had requested extra tickets for his family to attend.
They can get in for free on the final day, as it happens, Nottinghamshire having announced this generous offer around an hour before the Stokes news dropped. Although the captain will not be on the field when England resume on 103 for four in pursuit of an improbable 373 to win, Stokes having opened the batting alongside Ben Duckett and fallen for a manic 30 in his final innings.
While it added to the sense of main-character energy on the day – just ask Daryl Mitchell, whose gutsy unbeaten 100 across four hours had set the final equation – the promotion could be said to have had cricketing logic. Stokes wanted to get the chase off to a flyer on a now capricious surface, ransacking two fours and two sixes before Foulkes got revenge via a flying catch from Mitchell at midwicket.
Not that it ended the freewheeling carnage of a final session that sat in contrast to New Zealand’s slow-burn to 288 for nine declared. Jacob Bethell was trapped lbw by Foulkes fourth ball, while Brook thrashed 21 off nine deliveries before holing out off the same man. Joe Root even pulled out his previously shelved ramp shot. He will resume first thing alongside the demoted Emilio Gay after Duckett edged yet another rising delivery to slip on the cusp of stumps.
And to think that everything seemed so normal at the start of the day as New Zealand resumed on 120 for three and Mitchell began his display of focus and courage under fire. A video released by the ECB shortly after that 3.25pm announcement highlighted that things had been anything but normal inside the England dressing room before the players took the field.
It showed Stokes informing his players of the decision, with Bethel summing up the mood as he sat there wide-eyed and dumbstruck. As well as urging his players to join him for one last push with the series on the line, the most revealing comment from Stokes was when he told them that “the reasons [for it] can wait”.
Clearly the decision goes beyond simply his age, 35, or miles on the clock. Sure, that last Ashes series took its toll on Stokes – a tour and a philosophy dismantled under a harsh Australian sun. But over the coming days, regardless of how the fifth day pans out, questions will be asked of the ECB. The fact is, the public would take 12 months more of Stokes at the helm over the continuation of a flatlining regime.
Not that Stokes is blameless in this messy affair. His decision to hit the town after the victory at Lord’s was reckless, regardless of the management’s failure to spell out the precise rules of the team’s midnight curfew. The moment a Saracens rugby player grabbed Gus Atkinson by the throat and landed a stray punch on the face of the ECB security guard, the scars of the winter were reopened.
Perhaps it was always going to end like this. Stokes called his first autobiography Playing With Fire, his second Firestarter. From the moment Andy Flower sent an uncapped Stokes home from a Lions tour following an ill-advised late night – a rebuke that led to Stokes offering some choice words in return – his career has been one of significant highs on the field and combustible moments off it.
It all added to the legend; the boy from Christchurch, New Zealand, whose arrival in England aged 12 was itself a quirk of fate. The public moved on from the notorious Bristol incident in 2017, with those twin peaks of Lord’s and Headingley two summers later becoming the enduring image – before he then carved a Test team in that fiery image across four rollercoaster years.
As Stokes neatly put it after walking off the field: “It has never been simple with me.”
