Former England opener and captain Andrew Strauss has criticised the timing of Ben Stokes’ decision to retire from international cricket.
The England captain and all-rounder announced his shock retirement midway through the final Test against New Zealand, and Strauss believed the timing of the announcement became a “distraction” for his team and ought to have been different.
Everyone has the right to bow out on their own terms: Strauss
“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.”
Stokes broke the news to his teammates on the morning of Day 4 of the series decider at Trent Bridge. A formal public announcement was made during the afternoon session of the same day, while Stokes was bowling. The captain immediately received a standing ovation from the crowd, and repaid the adoration with a wicket off the very next ball.
With the three-match series poised finely at 1-1, and England facing an uphill task to stave off defeat to the Kiwis across the last two days of the match, Strauss was “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.”
Indeed, any Plan A seemed to have been torn up. Stokes bowled a mammoth 11-over spell in the third innings and later came out to open the batting in the fourth. He tried to hit the first two deliveries he faced, falling over while attempting a switch hit off the second. By that point, he was simply seeing red — devoid of calm and batting with an anger that all but ruled out any hope of England salvaging a draw. Not that that had ever seemed likely. As a team, England are still married to the aggressive “Bazball”, and Stokes, its fiercest enforcer and proponent, was playing less for a win and a final hurrah that never transpired.
Stokes’ retirement brings to mind that of Stuart Broad, who similarly announced his decision midway through the final Test of the 2023 Ashes. England were trailing that series 2-1, but Broad bowed out in a “fairytale ending” — taking a wicket with his last ball to seal the England match win and draw the series 2-2.
There was to be no fairytale for Stokes. He departed his final innings having hit 30 runs off 20 balls in a strange final knock that seemed a deliberate invective-laced statement to the England and Wales Cricket Board establishment that had worn him down. He left his side to chase 314 runs that proved 160 too many.
It was, as former captain Michael Vaughan succinctly summarised, “A bizarre way for one of England’s greatest cricketers to bow out.
