Former England captain Andrew Strauss isn’t one bit pleased with how Ben Stokes decided to retire. The all-rounder had informed his teammates that he’d hang up his boots before the start of the fourth day’s play at Trent Bridge. Mind you, the series was levelled at 1-1, and New Zealand was in a dominant position.
Untimely retirement announcement
However, the official confirmation arrived in the middle of the day when Stokes had bowled a marathon 10-over spell. One wonders: why did the news break out while Stokes was bowling his heart out? From afar, it looked performative. In a proper cinematic way, Stokes claimed the 8th wicket in his next over.
However, that wasn’t the only or the biggest issue. After New Zealand chose to declare at 288 and set a 373 target, Stokes decided to open the batting. Emilio Gay, who was playing just his third Test match, was pushed down to number seven. The reasoning was that England wanted to attack the new ball.
Ben Stokes’ selfish farewell
It wasn’t just that the batting order was shuffled, with Harry Brook coming ahead of Joe Root, but the manner in which England batted. Stokes and Brook swung hard at every ball. Root tried playing the reverse ramp on his second delivery. It was as if Stokes wanted to give a ‘middle finger’ to the higher-ups.
“It doesn’t feel like a time for negatives, and so I hesitate to say this, but I’m 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.
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,” Strauss wrote on LinkedIn.
When Stokes took over as captain in 2022, he led the way. He attacked to prove to his team that they wouldn’t be punished for their failures while they attempted to play their natural game. In his last hurrah, he flipped that. It was all about him and his farewell. Mind you, it was him breaking the midnight curfew that led to England losing the Oval Test, and then he made everything about him.
Why England lost
England lost by 160 runs, but they shouldn’t have. Gus Atkinson faced 70 balls on the fifth day. He showed the application that batters didn’t. Jamie Smith was the last man out, not because he got an unplayable ball but because he ran out of partners. England lost not just because New Zealand outplayed them but also because Stokes made it all about himself.
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