Ben Stokes, the captain of England, announced his shock retirement from international cricket in the middle of a Test match on Sunday. Stokes was dismissed for 30 in his final international innings.
On the fourth day of the current third Test match against New Zealand in Nottingham, the 35-year-old all-rounder announced his upcoming departure just before dinner. He had told his teammates in the Trent Bridge dressing room prior to the start of Sunday’s play, with the three-match series level at 1-1.
Stokes was ready to begin his eleventh over in the middle of a long bowling session when word reached the startled crowd at Trent Bridge, who then gave him a standing ovation.
With his next ball, Stokes caught Zak Foulkes at slip in a moment of pure sporting theater, igniting even more boisterous applause.
As if that weren’t enough drama, Stokes, normally a middle-order batsman, came out to open the innings for just the third time in his 122-Test career after Daryl Mitchell’s undefeated century set a challenging victory target of 373 for New Zealand.
Before being dropped shortly after, Stokes demonstrated his intentions with a powerful drive off his first balls encountered.
Later, he hit a legside six off New Zealand’s concussion substitute Zak Foulkes, and the left-handed batter cleared the ropes once more when he slog-swept seamer Nathan Smith. However, England was 50-1 in the eighth over of their chase when Stokes slogged Foulkes to wide mid-on, ending a 20-ball innings that also included two fours.
Following the fallout from a London nightclub incident that also involved teammate Gus Atkinson earlier this month, Stokes returned to England duty at Trent Bridge on Sunday, when the shocking announcement was made.
Due to their violation of a midnight curfew while celebrating England’s victory in the first Test, the two were excluded from a 253-run loss in the second Test at the Oval, which tied this three-match series at 1-1.
After receiving a written conduct warning, Stokes was spared further disciplinary action and went back to leading the team at Trent Bridge.
In a video released by the ECB, Stokes informed his teammates that his illustrious England career would come to a stop following the conclusion of the New Zealand series: “There’s something that I know is going to happen over the next two days, which is my last two days as your captain and my last two days representing England. Reasons can wait but I’ve had many trips to the well before for this team, for you blokes, for people beforehand and I’ve got one more trip to do. And the only thing that I ask, please, is can everyone please just do the same? We’ve got a lot of hard work still to do.”
Since making his white-ball debut fifteen years ago, Stokes, who has been captain of the Test team since 2022, has been responsible for some of England’s most outstanding performances in Test and limited overs cricket.
In the 2019 50-over World Cup final at Lord’s, he scored an undefeated 84 against New Zealand, helping to push the game into a Super Over where England emerged victorious.
A few weeks later, England defeated Australia by one wicket in the third Ashes Test at Headingley thanks to his incredible unbeaten 135. In addition to having taken more over 250 Test wickets, Stokes’ greatest Test score was an incredible 258 against South Africa in Cape Town in 2016.
“Ben Stokes leaves the international game as one of England’s greatest ever cricketers and one of the defining figures of his generation,” AFP quoted England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Richard Thompson as saying.
But throughout his England career, Stokes also went through a number of difficult times both on and off the pitch.
The West Indies needed an improbable 19 off the final over of the 2016 T20 World Cup in Kolkata, and England were just six balls away from victory. However, Stokes was hit for four straight sixes by Carlos Brathwaite and was dejected at the end.
After a one-day international match against the West Indies in September 2017, Stokes was detained in the early hours of the morning following a fight outside a nightclub in Bristol, southwest England.
Eleven months later, Stokes was found not guilty on a charge of affray in a criminal trial, but by then, he had missed an Ashes series defeat in Australia.
