Ben Stokes was England’s flawed champion – and he’s irreplaceable
Ben Stokes was England’s flawed champion – and he’s irreplaceable
Richard JollySun, June 28, 2026 at 3:53 PM UTC
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More than any other England player, Ben Stokes seemed to write his own scripts (Getty Images)
The return only lasted one game. Three days, really, given that before the fourth day of the third Test between England cricket and New Zealand cricket at Trent Bridge, Ben Stokes had informed his teammates he was retiring at the end of the Test. And then, perhaps typically, he launched into a final, marathon spell with the ball, 11 overs in the heat.
At least it was a more fitting finale than a night out where he broke his own curfew, even if the two were inextricably linked. With his first ball after the Nottingham crowd heard the news, he took a wicket; not for the first time with Stokes, Graham Gooch’s question to Ian Botham – “who writes your scripts?” – came to mind. More than virtually any other cricketer, Stokes wrote his own, and some were too improbable to come from the realms of fiction. The story isn’t over; the full tale of his retirement is still to emerge, but every chapter of his career was captivating.
The lows were low, a night out in Bristol in 2017 threatening to curtail a career in disgrace, one in London in 2026 perhaps abbreviating it a little. But the highs reached stratospheric highs. Ben Stokes was the man who conquered world cricket in different ways; hit for four sixes by Carlos Brathwaite to lose one World Cup final, he won two more by force of personality as much as by talent. Stokes’ less remembered feat, in the 2022 T20 final, was a scrappy innings, an unbeaten 52 off 49 balls, but it was forged by an iron will.
And yet, in an epic, extraordinary career, two efforts with the bat will be remembered above all others; in his golden summer of 2019, Stokes was England’s miracle man. Perhaps only Botham has ever combined charisma with match-winning interventions with bat and ball in the history of English cricket; each had a flair for the unlikely.
The 2019 World Cup final had other heroes – Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer, Liam Plunkett, Chris Woakes – but it was Stokes, with his unbeaten 84, who prevented New Zealand, the country of his birth, from winning at Lord’s.
Five weeks later, at Headingley and in the Ashes, Stokes delivered his most Botham-esque feat of all; bowling 24.2 overs off the reel, making 135 not out, beating Australia in a last-wicket stand of 76 with Jack Leach, whose contribution was one not out. For England, where there was Stokes there was hope.
Stokes’s remarkable last-wicket stand of 76 with Jack Leach in the 2019 Ashes will live on forever (Getty Images)
It was one way, though his galvanising captaincy was another, in which his importance transcended the numbers. Only Jacques Kallis and Stokes have done the double of 7,000 Test runs and 250 wickets; and yet the abiding memories will not lie in the facts and figures.
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Stokes was the superhuman presence, capable of incredible catches, of both building Test-match centuries and belting the ball many a mile, of bowling with genuine speed in endless spells and of swinging the ball around corners.
At his peak, he was the best cricketer in the world: not always consistently though sometimes stunningly. But in a five-year period from 2016 to 2020, he made 3,430 Test runs at 42.3 and took 112 wickets at 27.6. Stokes had such a range of skills, and such determination, that even in the final 18 months of his international career, and as his batting declined, his bowling had never been better. Or, not that Stokes defines himself that way, his bowling average had never been lower at least.
Stokes’s brilliant innings saved England in the 2019 World Cup final (Getty Images)
There were times in a 15-year international career when it felt as though Stokes was breaking his own body, sometimes in seemingly lost causes. Maybe they motivated him more.
One of his greatest crusades was cricket itself. He took over the captaincy after England had won one of their previous 17 Tests. Stokes revolutionised England’s approach with his boldness. He took his personal capacity for the implausible and transferred it to the whole team. Some of England’s victories were ridiculous. And, yes, they never won a series against either India or Australia, and last winter’s Ashes was both anti-climax and farce, but the home series, each drawn 2-2, were spectacular.
A wretched winter in Australia brought signs that Bazball, like Stokes, was nearing its end. Huge as Stokes’ legacy is, he leaves England in a hole. There was a need for him to carry on until next summer’s Ashes, and now he won’t. There is no compelling choice as captain, no natural successor in the team.
There is no natural successor to Stokes as England skipper (Getty)
The probability is that Joe Root will have to be pressed into service as skipper, dutifully rather than inspirationally, with Harry Brook looking unsuited to the job now. The issue as a player is that the great all-rounders are always irreplaceable. They are two players in one; though Stokes, as captain, was three.
But then the realists always knew there would never be another Stokes. He was England’s flawed champion, but among its finest. And as a specialist in the impossible, he was unbeatable.
Source: “AOL Sports”
