It was one of the most extraordinary scenes witnessed in a career positively 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 suddenly turned into a standing ovation.
Moments earlier the England and Wales Cricket Board had announced 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 in the stands 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 in West Bridgford, 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 and the series was already drifting out of reach but in that split second, no one inside Trent Bridge cared. 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 remarkable day in one sense but less of a surprise looking back at the signs. After 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 on the eve of 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, with Nottinghamshire having announced this generous offer around an hour before the Stokes news landed. However, their man will not be on the field when England resume on 103 for four in pursuit of an improbable 373 to win. Stokes opened the batting alongside Ben Duckett, only to fall for a manic 30 from 20 balls in his final innings.
While it added to a day of main‑character energy from Stokes – just ask Daryl Mitchell, whose gutsy unbeaten 100 across four hours deserved more headlines than it got – the promotion had cricketing logic. Stokes wanted to get the chase off to a flyer on a hugely capricious surface, ransacking two fours and two sixes before Foulkes exacted revenge via a diving catch from Mitchell at mid-wicket.
Not that it ended the freewheeling carnage of a final session that sat in contrast to New Zealand’s slow-burning march to 288 for nine declared. Jacob Bethell was trapped lbw by Foulkes fourth ball, while Brook thrashed 21 off nine 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.
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 impressive display of focus and courage under fire. Albeit thanks to a video released by the ECB shortly after that 3.25pm press release, it turned out things had been anything but normal inside the home dressing room before the players crossed the rope.
It showed Stokes informing his players of the decision. His close ally, Root, was told the night before but a wide‑eyed, dumbstruck Bethell summed up the mood of the rank and file. As well as urging them to join him for one last push with the match and the series on the line, the most telling comment from Stokes was when told them that “the reasons [for it] can wait”.
Clearly the decision goes beyond just 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 in an England cap over what is now a flatlining regime.
Not that Stokes is entirely blameless in this messy affair. His decision to hit the town after the win at Lord’s was reckless, regardless of the management’s failure to spell out the precise rules of the midnight curfew. Once 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.
Stokes admitted he had built that Lord’s Test up in his mind too much, having spent five months plotting atonement for Australia and sustained a broken cheek during a freak accident in the Durham nets. The release upon winning the first Test perhaps clouded his judgment. And when a disciplinary action followed – not least a punishment far harsher than for Brook’s similar antics the night before a one-day international in New Zealand – it left him questioning how much he truly had left to give.
Perhaps it was always going to end like this. Stokes called his first autobiography On Fire, his second Firestarter. From the moment Andy Flower sent an uncapped Stokes home from a Lions tour in 2013 after one late night too many – 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. That image was then translated to the Test team as a whole across four rollercoaster years as captain.
Who knows, maybe there will be one final chapter. Stokes retired from ODI cricket in 2022 and reversed it a year later. Given he will play on for Durham, it is not impossible to imagine a scenario during the Ashes next summer when an SOS comes his way. One suspects certain members of the ECB hierarchy will need to have moved on for this to be met with a thumbs up emoji but things can change.
As Stokes put it himself after walking off the field with the air of a man unburdened for the first time in a while: “It has never been simple with me.”
