In a move that surprised supporters and shocked even his own teammates Ben Stokes has announced his retirement as captain of England’s Test team, and from international cricket, effective as of the end of the third Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge.
Having broken the news to the dressing room on Sunday morning – “It was shock,” Stokes said of the reaction, adding that Brendon McCullum, the team’s head coach, “was pretty taken aback” – the decision was made public with typically dramatic timing: in the fourth day of a match, 15 minutes before tea, with England in the field and Stokes labouring through a trademark, extended bowling spell.
Having made a reputation for rising to big occasions, he inevitably took a wicket with his first delivery after the news broke. It was, as Joe Root later described it, “the most Ben thing ever”. He later promoted himself to open England’s second innings, a chaotic effort of 30 off 20 balls, and retires with 7,273 runs and 252 wickets in Test cricket. He is only the second player, after South Africa’s Jacques Kallis, to do the double of 7,000 Test runs and 250 wickets.
After the close of play the 35‑year‑old said he had been seriously considering retirement since the first Test of the series at Lord’s, which he described as “a very, very strange week” which “brought back some negative feelings about where I was in my career”. That followed a difficult period since England’s humbling 4-1 defeat in the Ashes last winter, which included sustaining a serious facial injury in February.
Stokes missed the second game of this series at the Oval as the England and Wales Cricket Board undertook an investigation into his extended celebrations following the win at Lord’s, which ended in his exoneration. In that time he played for his county, Durham, against Northamptonshire.
“I absolutely love cricket, I love the sport,” he said after the close of play. “Over the last 12 months there’s been certain moments where I felt like I haven’t loved it. Last week back with Durham, there wasn’t a moment when I didn’t. Being able to compare being back with my county and here, to not feel that sense of love and complete and utter enjoyment like I have done before, you just know.”
Root, having given up the captaincy in 2022 saying it had left him feeling like “a shadow of the person that I wanted to be”, and as a close friend of Stokes since they first played against each other as 12-year-olds, was among the first to find out about the decision, on Saturday night.
“Someone I’ve spoken to quite a lot around this stuff is Joe, and he gets it,” Stokes said. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever been asked to do, captain this team and captain this country. But there’s another side to it all that people don’t see and don’t understand. As good as it is, there are bits where it does drain you, and does affect you in an emotional way. I’ve loved every single moment of it, but some times and some moments have been harder than others.”
Root was interim captain at the Oval in Stokes’s absence but has played down chances of his making a full-time comeback. After the conclusion of this game the red-ball side will be out of action for seven weeks, before the first of three games against Pakistan starts in August, giving time for a replacement to be identified. Harry Brook captains the white‑ball teams and has been Stokes’s vice-captain.
Stokes made his debut in Adelaide during the 2013-14 Ashes and is playing in his 122nd Test, and making his 279th international appearance. Among many career highlights of a player who will be remembered as one of the country’s great characters and all-rounders, he was a key member of the England teams who won the 2019 50-over World Cup and the T20 version in 2022, author of a heroic match-turning innings at Headingley in the 2019 Ashes, and since his appointment as the team’s captain in 2022 co-creator, with the head coach McCullum, of the controversial, ultra-attacking and now partially abandoned brand of Test cricket that came to be known as Bazball.
Root said: “He put everything into every last bit of every game, he left it all out there on the field, and I think that’s a really impressive legacy to leave. He never shirked any kind of responsibility or left anything to anyone else. He wanted the big moments in games, and there were times when it didn’t work out for him and there were times when he won games single-handedly. He is certainly one of those rare individuals that relished those opportunities and they bring the best out of him, and it’s a big reason why he’s been able to achieve what he has done as a player.
“The thing I’ll look back on the most is that when I was captain, the person I would always turn to in big moments would be him. I’d throw him the ball and he’d make things happen. And I think such an impressive thing to be thought of any player, is that when the team really needs something you’re the person they turn to – and he’s always been that guy.”
The highs ...
World Cup supremo [pictured]
Without Stokes’ outright heroics in 2019, England’s men would still be looking for a first ever World Cup title. He produced an unforgettable performance in the final in front of a sold-out Lord’s – and a bumper audience on free-to-air TV – to bring home the trophy against New Zealand. His 84 not out was a thrill ride, levelling the scores from a seemingly hopeless position to force a super over. He batted again to help seal the deal and spark huge celebrations. Three years later in the T20 equivalent, Stokes came to the fore once more with an unbeaten fifty in the final against Pakistan at the MCG, as England became the first side to hold both men's white-ball World Cups simultaneously.
Miracle at Headingley
Just six weeks after his 2019 World Cup stunner, Stokes put together a batting performance that many experts rated as even more remarkable. After being bowled out for a humiliating 67 in the first innings of the third Ashes Test, Stokes inspired a national record chase of 359 on a delirious fourth day in Leeds. His last-wicket stand of 76 with number 11 Jack Leach, who accounted for just one of them, is already the stuff of cricketing folklore.
Bazball's captain fantastic
Inheriting a side that had won just once in their last 17 Tests, Stokes, alongside head coach Brendon McCullum, lifted the gloom in the summer of 2022 with a heady cocktail of relentless positivity and aggression. New Zealand, India and South Africa were all swept aside as England ransacked runs and chased down fourth-innings targets that would have seemed fanciful under any other regime.
... and the lows
The Bristol incident
Stokes was arrested in the early hours after an altercation outside the Mbargo nightclub in Bristol, following a ODI against the West Indies in September 2017. He was found not guilty on a charge of affray 11 months later, but by then had missed a crucial Ashes series and briefly lost the vice-captaincy. He credits England teammate and great friend Joe Root’s support for helping him through.
Kolkata calamity
England were six balls away from landing the 2016 T20 World Cup in India, with the West Indies needing an unlikely 19 off the final over of the tournament. Stokes, who had emerged as a bankable death bowler, stepped up and was promptly launched for four consecutive sixes by Carlos Brathwaite. He cut a crestfallen figure among the Caribbean celebrations – but would soon bounce back.
Dropped, then reinstated
With questions of a drinking culture not yet banished after a chastening 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia, Stokes was stood down along with Gus Atkinson for the recent second Test against New Zealand for breaking a team curfew after an incident in a nightclub. The pair returned to the England XI after a disciplinary investigation concluded Stokes was not involved in the altercation that saw two “unprovoked attacks” on teammate Atkinson. PA Media
Rob Key, the ECB’s managing director of men’s cricket since 2022, described Stokes as “one of the best cricketers the game has seen”. He said: “It’s the end of one of the most remarkable international careers. The last four years have been an absolute privilege to work closely with the person I believe to be one of the best leaders in British sport. A captain who transformed a team, and the individuals in it, to become one of the most enjoyable to sit back and watch.”
Richard Thompson, the ECB chair, said: “Ben Stokes leaves the international game as one of England’s greatest ever cricketers and one of the defining figures of his generation. His performances under pressure, his relentless competitiveness and his ability to produce the extraordinary when it matters most have given me and millions of other fans memories that will endure for ever … We are losing a batsman, a bowler, a captain and a talisman.”
