Bombshell from Ben as he quits ODIs
England Test captain admits body can’t cope with hectic schedule
BeN STOkeS dropped a bombshell on england yesterday when he announced his immediate retirement from one-day cricket.
The england Test captain will today play his 105th and final 50-over game at his home ground in Durham against South Africa after his shock announcement that playing in three formats had become ‘unsustainable’ for him.
The news comes in the middle of a packed international programme that sees england today beginning another series just two days after finishing the last one against India and came with a thinly veiled attack on the schedules from the 31-year-old.
‘As hard a decision as this was to come to, it’s not as hard as dealing with the fact I can’t give my team-mates 100 per cent in this format any more,’ said Stokes in a statement yesterday.
‘The england shirt deserves nothing less from anyone who wears it. Three formats are just unsustainable for me now. Not only do I feel my body is letting me down because of the schedule and what is expected of us, but I also feel I’m taking the place of another player who can give Jos Buttler and the team their all.
‘I will give everything I have to Test cricket and now, with this decision, I feel I can also give my total commitment to the T20 format.’
Stokes provided one of the greatest moments in english cricket history in the 50-over format when he made an unbeaten 84 in the tied World Cup final against New Zealand at Lord’s in 2019 before hitting another eight runs in the Super Over that was to eventually lead to england’s nail-biting victory. But he has thrown himself into the Test captaincy this summer and, after taking a break to protect his mental health last year, clearly now feels too much is being asked of him to sustain his all-round role across all formats of an increasingly hectic international game.
Stokes scored just 48 runs in the three matches of england’s 2-1 defeat to India and bowled only three overs after seemingly suffering again from his longstanding knee injury.
The good news is Stokes will be even more committed now to Test cricket after his extraordinary start as england captain
in transforming a woefully underperforming team and re-energising the purest form of the game with what should be called Baz and Ben Ball.
The bad news is this is a serious blow to the longer limitedovers format that is becoming increasingly marginalised by the unstoppable march of Twenty20 cricket and the introduction of an unnecessary new format in the hundred.
Above all, this is a serious warning to administrators that the game’s greatest players will not put up with schedules that are now full to bursting postpandemic and we have reached what Nasser hussain says in these pages today is cricket’s breaking point. Why else would england’s greatest player retire from the format where his country are world champions just three days after pulling out of the eCB’s hugely damaging new competition in the hundred that is one of the biggest and avoidable causes of the fixture pile-up?
england have crammed seven Tests and 15 white-ball internationals into this summer, off the back of a hectic Ashes winter and a tour of West Indies, and will leave for Pakistan in September for the first leg of their busiest ever winter less than a week after their final home Test. It is madness and Stokes will not be the first big name to rebel against it.
But he would not have taken this decision lightly. Stokes desperately wants to play in every england game and is turning his back on a format where he has scored almost 3,000 runs in 104 games with three centuries. It is the white-ball cricket he is best at. But clearly something had to give and it is understandable Stokes does not want to give up Twenty20 cricket, not when it is taking over the cricketing world and not when it will gain more and more prominence through ever burgeoning franchise leagues.
As he said in his statement yesterday, he will be able to concentrate more fully now on the white-ball format of the game where, curiously, we have all too seldom seen the best of him despite his obvious all-round strengths as a Twenty20 cricketer.
Could this have been avoided? Well, eoin Morgan said earlier this season that Stokes would not feature in any white-ball cricket this season. The thenengland captain clearly was happy not to see him until the build-up to this winter’s World Cup in Australia. But something changed with the departure of Morgan as captain, Stokes seemingly not being able to resist making himself available for both 50-over series this summer against India and South Africa starting on his home ground today. Now he will only make the first of those three later matches.
The reality is it has been a step too far for Stokes. The incredible high of his introduction as Test captain has been followed by a dramatic comedown as he has struggled with the bat against India and hobbled around the field nursing his long-standing knee problem.
he has always been one to wear his heart on his sleeve and not be afraid to make the big decision, even if perhaps a compromise could have been reached that saw Stokes just playing in big 50-over tournaments. But he would have seen that as holding someone back and there are no shortage of very good white-ball players who can stand up now.
None of them, though, will be as good as Stokes.