I need to start by acknowledging a truly wonderful career. He led England to white-ball trophies, and was capable of epic performances in Tests. Australians tend to think of Stokes as a good all-round cricketer; in England, he's spoken of as if he were some kind of combination of Brian Lara and Malcolm Marshall. It's impossible to exaggerate the reverence in which he's held by most English cricketers.
That has made it more difficult for people in England to evaluate his recent performances with any objectivity. It has been some years since he was a Test batsman of any consequence. In the last three years, his Test average is 26.88 (from the relative comfort of six or seven in the order). In each of England's two major series in that time, against India and Australia, he averaged 19. He has seemed, a lot of the time, to have been batting with a mind cluttered by anger. In the same period, he has often been England's best bowler, but the toll this has taken on his own body has been fearful.
But he leaves English cricket in a mess, to the point where the team needs to be rebuilt almost from scratch. There is not a single player in the Test side whom you could confidently appoint as the next leader. Cricket's convention, God knows why, is that you make the best batsman captain. Well, Root has been there and done that and isn't very keen to repeat it. So Brook? But he can't even control his own game. He's just been standing in the field watching Mitchell score 100 from 241 balls - proving, if nothing else, that batting is possible on this pitch. Someone with a bit tactical sense might think, hey, how many would I make if I bat for 241 balls? (The answer, in Brook's case, might be between 150 and 250) But no: in this team, somehow, slogging seems to be the answer to every problem. Hey guys, if we smash 100 tonight, we'll only need 270 tomorrow! Well, sure, but if you throw away four wickets tonight, New Zealand will only need six more. Duckett has played 45 Tests without ever being mentioned as a leadership candidate, Bethell is a kid who isn't sure where his off stump is, Smith is trying to find something approaching consistency...
If this is the last Bazball Test, it's a fitting epitaph. Dumb to the last. New Zealand was down to two fit seamers, and Mitchell Santner looked as though he was trying to remember how to bowl. If England had been happy to score at, say, five an over, they could have been 75 for 0 at stumps and New Zealand would have been there for the taking. Duckett, I guess, got a good ball, but his mind was scrambled by trying to alternate smashes and scoops. The other three gifted their wickets. Billy Beane's insight in Moneyball was that the most important number in baseball is three: the number of outs in an innings. In Bazball, the number of outs seemed not to matter if your strike rate was higher than the other side's.
The only good news for England is that the series they have next isn't a bad one for a side in transition. if England is in disarray, Pakistan can usually see them and raise them a crisis or two. So I suppose England puts Root back in charge, with a brief to hold things steady while England resets. Much as they will miss him, I suspect there may be players in the England side who could benefit from not playing in the atmosphere of angry intensity that seemed to surround Stokes lately. I suspect Stokes' retirement puts an end to Shoaib Bashir's Test career for now: without the all-rounder, I don't see England playing a non-batting spinner. Maybe Jordan Cox and Rehan Ahmed come in for Stokes and Bashir, and England tries to find a settled side in time for the Ashes in 12 months time. It feels, though, like there are no quick fixes.
Agree with most of this, especially the fact there is no obvious captain in the side. Root is certainly not the answer. Maybe it's time for England to find a well respected captain with tactical and motivational skills in county ranks and promote them ie another Brearley? Tactically Stokes was a good captain, but the Bazball mentality has scrambled their thinking and clearly they don't know whether to go back to "proper" batting or resurrect Bazball.
Well, I never scored 258 in a Test against South Africa or took 6-22 in a Test, and I never led my country to a couple of white ball world cups, so from where I sit it looks pretty good to me. Kallis is the only other player ever to score more than 7000 Test runs and take 250 Test wickets. Most days I was happy with two for 27 in Third Grade so all that looks pretty good to me.
Great piece, as always. My only slight bone of contention is whether Stokes was truly selfless. I’ve always sensed an air of contrivance to him, and entitlement. Those close to him don’t say so so perhaps I am wrong. Also too entitled for mine at times. I’ll give an example - in the NZ first innings Santner gloved him to Smith and reviewed thinking it’d only hit his arm. Stokes gets right up in his face and prods him in the glove. In the one hand harmless, on the other an unnecessary intrusion into Santner’s space. We’ve seen numerous equivalences from him over the years. What makes him think he should impose himself like that constantly? Perhaps it’s just the domain of the alpha dog, but it wore thin on me some time ago. That said you’ve got to salute a tremendous playing career.
As usual Gideon nails it! - “For all Stokes’s barnstorming feats and magnificent moments, cricket in England looks embattled, confused, diminished - much like, ten years after its own act of deliberate and pointless self-harm, the country.”
I have a theory that I think applies to all writers, both of fiction and non-fiction. That is, that there is a finite source of good ideas and the ability to express them in high quality writing. Like a well with a limited amount of water in it. Even with periodic replenishment most wells eventually run dry or at least become shallow. Gideon Haigh’s writing is so continually exceptional and over such a long period that he is the ‘black swan’ of this simple little analogy. He doesn’t have a well of ideas and ability but a sea. Maybe a black swan could be an idea for a future Et Al tee shirt.
So much is written and said of Stokes that you think you’ve heard it all, but then Gideon adds his piece and you realise that what you’ve been hearing was in fact sycophancy disguised as journalism, or competitive dislike disguised as objective analysis (of that I am guilty).
Gideon manages to articulate Stokes’ strengths and shortcomings in such a way that even the most captivated English viewer would have to acquiesce to this assessment. And the most ardent Australian naysayer has to recognise the qualities that make Stokes admirable, or at least intriguing.
Found it very strange when he decided to announce it, mid-match, with loads of warnings to not let it be a distraction. If you're self-aware enough to know that you've decided on an unusual course of action and announcing it early *will* be a distraction... why announce it? Why not wait until the end of the match? Smacks of someone trying to look humble, but wanting the spotlight one more time.
It’s hard to make sense of the ham fisted management of the team in recent weeks but I am sad to see him go. I would have liked to see him in Melbourne next year for the 150th anniversary. The cricket would have been better with him on the ground.
Perfectly summarised, Gideon. Whatever Stokes thought he was doing in the past eight months, it doesn't seem much like the leadership England cricket needed.
A incredible cricketer who played the best test innings I’ve seen. But a petulant departure and showed he’s ready to go. The T20 circuit awaits. Meanwhile English cricket is a shambles. Again.
Even by the standards of the England we've come to know in recent years, this exit was a total hash. From the "surprise" mid-way through a test match, to Stokes' ludicrous decision to open batting, fling his wicket away, the apprentices do the same - and the test, and the series are gifted to New Zealand. Why? Ego. Perhaps a miracle will occur tomorrow, but odds are not good. England faces the same problem as the Republicans will after their core has been husked out by a "me me me" leader. Difference is that Stokes was a fantastic player. But his captaincy speaks for itself.
Stokes was very unique, talisman, savior, warrior and in the end selfish and unable to be a standard carrier.
He is leaving at a very challenging time, and no doubt others will be vacating the building in a very short period of time.
A team and organization that is bereft of leadership and strategy will be struggling to find a path forward when all involved have been fully invested in the mercurial Ben Stokes.
The elevation of Stokes and Brook in the second innings is not just ill judged, it is utterly selfish as Root is left to fight for dignity on the final day with Gay, Smith and then That Awfully Long Tail. I presume McCullum was all in favour , and may even have been the instigator of this reckless ploy. To recap, New Zealand were missing two of their first team bowlers and had several others bearing injuries, yet the common sense option of wearing down the few remaining members of their attack was discarded on a whim of shameful caprice. All credit to New Zealand who will surely win a deserved series victory today
And yet it might have been the only way to do it. I left Trent Bridge an hour ago. No team was ever going to chase those runs down on that wicket. Santner was turning it sideways. 10 degrees of spin he was getting. Somebody described the beginning of the final innings as the Viking burial of Bazball. So let it be….and thank you Ben Stokes for some of the most memorable and exciting sporting moments. Flawed undoubtedly but utterly riveting.
Even by GH’s standards, this is an absolutely brilliant article - capturing Stokes’ good, bad and ugly with mastery of technique matching Tendulkar’s straight drives and flair reminding of Lara (there, I’m aging myself).
Gaining 2 time zones this week with family at Ningaloo (strongly recommended to anyone with even the slightest maritime inclination), I heard Athers on Kayo whispering to his director as the ECB’s words met the press, then for The Announcement to the viewers on tv, ironically before those at the ground, who spontaneously leapt in ovation, setting the scene for the grand Stokes theatre of the Folkes dismissal. That moment, for me was pure Stokes - much better articulated in GH’s article.
But then it turned bad, and ugly. Stokes’ last act would completely take the piss out of Test cricket, as if derobing BazBall for the fraud it is - right after watching Mitchell shelve all his aggressive tendencies for the betterment of his Team taking the fourth inning ask past 350 on an increasingly challenging deck. Elevating himself to opener (“going back to the well one last time for you lot” (sic)) and leading his team in 16 overs to more than 100 of those runs, but losing 4 wickets (except notably Root’s) and effectively handing NZ command of the match and Series.
It breathtakingly conveys utter selfishness, defiance and many other things. It harms Test cricket.
It might be mercurial at times, it might even win once in a while, but it’s not my definition of leadership.
Advantage Australia for the Ashes 2027, maybe, because English cricket needs leadership.
And still you have to bring up an innocuous incident which occurred during The Crimean War, Gideon ... a low blow that, likely, only Stoksey could have endured.
This is precisely true.
I need to start by acknowledging a truly wonderful career. He led England to white-ball trophies, and was capable of epic performances in Tests. Australians tend to think of Stokes as a good all-round cricketer; in England, he's spoken of as if he were some kind of combination of Brian Lara and Malcolm Marshall. It's impossible to exaggerate the reverence in which he's held by most English cricketers.
That has made it more difficult for people in England to evaluate his recent performances with any objectivity. It has been some years since he was a Test batsman of any consequence. In the last three years, his Test average is 26.88 (from the relative comfort of six or seven in the order). In each of England's two major series in that time, against India and Australia, he averaged 19. He has seemed, a lot of the time, to have been batting with a mind cluttered by anger. In the same period, he has often been England's best bowler, but the toll this has taken on his own body has been fearful.
But he leaves English cricket in a mess, to the point where the team needs to be rebuilt almost from scratch. There is not a single player in the Test side whom you could confidently appoint as the next leader. Cricket's convention, God knows why, is that you make the best batsman captain. Well, Root has been there and done that and isn't very keen to repeat it. So Brook? But he can't even control his own game. He's just been standing in the field watching Mitchell score 100 from 241 balls - proving, if nothing else, that batting is possible on this pitch. Someone with a bit tactical sense might think, hey, how many would I make if I bat for 241 balls? (The answer, in Brook's case, might be between 150 and 250) But no: in this team, somehow, slogging seems to be the answer to every problem. Hey guys, if we smash 100 tonight, we'll only need 270 tomorrow! Well, sure, but if you throw away four wickets tonight, New Zealand will only need six more. Duckett has played 45 Tests without ever being mentioned as a leadership candidate, Bethell is a kid who isn't sure where his off stump is, Smith is trying to find something approaching consistency...
If this is the last Bazball Test, it's a fitting epitaph. Dumb to the last. New Zealand was down to two fit seamers, and Mitchell Santner looked as though he was trying to remember how to bowl. If England had been happy to score at, say, five an over, they could have been 75 for 0 at stumps and New Zealand would have been there for the taking. Duckett, I guess, got a good ball, but his mind was scrambled by trying to alternate smashes and scoops. The other three gifted their wickets. Billy Beane's insight in Moneyball was that the most important number in baseball is three: the number of outs in an innings. In Bazball, the number of outs seemed not to matter if your strike rate was higher than the other side's.
The only good news for England is that the series they have next isn't a bad one for a side in transition. if England is in disarray, Pakistan can usually see them and raise them a crisis or two. So I suppose England puts Root back in charge, with a brief to hold things steady while England resets. Much as they will miss him, I suspect there may be players in the England side who could benefit from not playing in the atmosphere of angry intensity that seemed to surround Stokes lately. I suspect Stokes' retirement puts an end to Shoaib Bashir's Test career for now: without the all-rounder, I don't see England playing a non-batting spinner. Maybe Jordan Cox and Rehan Ahmed come in for Stokes and Bashir, and England tries to find a settled side in time for the Ashes in 12 months time. It feels, though, like there are no quick fixes.
Agree with most of this, especially the fact there is no obvious captain in the side. Root is certainly not the answer. Maybe it's time for England to find a well respected captain with tactical and motivational skills in county ranks and promote them ie another Brearley? Tactically Stokes was a good captain, but the Bazball mentality has scrambled their thinking and clearly they don't know whether to go back to "proper" batting or resurrect Bazball.
Josh Inglis holds a couple of passports. Only saying ...
Pull the Brears ripcord.
For god's sake England, don't let Root captain the side again.
“Truly wonderful career”?????
Well, I never scored 258 in a Test against South Africa or took 6-22 in a Test, and I never led my country to a couple of white ball world cups, so from where I sit it looks pretty good to me. Kallis is the only other player ever to score more than 7000 Test runs and take 250 Test wickets. Most days I was happy with two for 27 in Third Grade so all that looks pretty good to me.
Great piece, as always. My only slight bone of contention is whether Stokes was truly selfless. I’ve always sensed an air of contrivance to him, and entitlement. Those close to him don’t say so so perhaps I am wrong. Also too entitled for mine at times. I’ll give an example - in the NZ first innings Santner gloved him to Smith and reviewed thinking it’d only hit his arm. Stokes gets right up in his face and prods him in the glove. In the one hand harmless, on the other an unnecessary intrusion into Santner’s space. We’ve seen numerous equivalences from him over the years. What makes him think he should impose himself like that constantly? Perhaps it’s just the domain of the alpha dog, but it wore thin on me some time ago. That said you’ve got to salute a tremendous playing career.
Well said.
As usual Gideon nails it! - “For all Stokes’s barnstorming feats and magnificent moments, cricket in England looks embattled, confused, diminished - much like, ten years after its own act of deliberate and pointless self-harm, the country.”
I have a theory that I think applies to all writers, both of fiction and non-fiction. That is, that there is a finite source of good ideas and the ability to express them in high quality writing. Like a well with a limited amount of water in it. Even with periodic replenishment most wells eventually run dry or at least become shallow. Gideon Haigh’s writing is so continually exceptional and over such a long period that he is the ‘black swan’ of this simple little analogy. He doesn’t have a well of ideas and ability but a sea. Maybe a black swan could be an idea for a future Et Al tee shirt.
I was astounded at this piece.
So much is written and said of Stokes that you think you’ve heard it all, but then Gideon adds his piece and you realise that what you’ve been hearing was in fact sycophancy disguised as journalism, or competitive dislike disguised as objective analysis (of that I am guilty).
Gideon manages to articulate Stokes’ strengths and shortcomings in such a way that even the most captivated English viewer would have to acquiesce to this assessment. And the most ardent Australian naysayer has to recognise the qualities that make Stokes admirable, or at least intriguing.
Bravo.
As it turned out, Stokesy did not, in fact, love these situations.
Benxit...
Ten years on and self-immolation is still a national pastime
Found it very strange when he decided to announce it, mid-match, with loads of warnings to not let it be a distraction. If you're self-aware enough to know that you've decided on an unusual course of action and announcing it early *will* be a distraction... why announce it? Why not wait until the end of the match? Smacks of someone trying to look humble, but wanting the spotlight one more time.
"The test of a cricketer is not one’s own record; it is the state of the game after you have gone."
This.
Stokes is / was a great cricketer, but he is not good for Cricket.
It’s hard to make sense of the ham fisted management of the team in recent weeks but I am sad to see him go. I would have liked to see him in Melbourne next year for the 150th anniversary. The cricket would have been better with him on the ground.
Perfectly summarised, Gideon. Whatever Stokes thought he was doing in the past eight months, it doesn't seem much like the leadership England cricket needed.
A incredible cricketer who played the best test innings I’ve seen. But a petulant departure and showed he’s ready to go. The T20 circuit awaits. Meanwhile English cricket is a shambles. Again.
Even by the standards of the England we've come to know in recent years, this exit was a total hash. From the "surprise" mid-way through a test match, to Stokes' ludicrous decision to open batting, fling his wicket away, the apprentices do the same - and the test, and the series are gifted to New Zealand. Why? Ego. Perhaps a miracle will occur tomorrow, but odds are not good. England faces the same problem as the Republicans will after their core has been husked out by a "me me me" leader. Difference is that Stokes was a fantastic player. But his captaincy speaks for itself.
Well said Simon! An accurate take.
Great last paragraph Gideon.
Stokes was very unique, talisman, savior, warrior and in the end selfish and unable to be a standard carrier.
He is leaving at a very challenging time, and no doubt others will be vacating the building in a very short period of time.
A team and organization that is bereft of leadership and strategy will be struggling to find a path forward when all involved have been fully invested in the mercurial Ben Stokes.
Many lessons to be learnt.
Will that happen?
Great piece Gideon. England cricket needs a bomb thrown in it to move on but their own politics shows self destruction is the current national norm.
The elevation of Stokes and Brook in the second innings is not just ill judged, it is utterly selfish as Root is left to fight for dignity on the final day with Gay, Smith and then That Awfully Long Tail. I presume McCullum was all in favour , and may even have been the instigator of this reckless ploy. To recap, New Zealand were missing two of their first team bowlers and had several others bearing injuries, yet the common sense option of wearing down the few remaining members of their attack was discarded on a whim of shameful caprice. All credit to New Zealand who will surely win a deserved series victory today
And yet it might have been the only way to do it. I left Trent Bridge an hour ago. No team was ever going to chase those runs down on that wicket. Santner was turning it sideways. 10 degrees of spin he was getting. Somebody described the beginning of the final innings as the Viking burial of Bazball. So let it be….and thank you Ben Stokes for some of the most memorable and exciting sporting moments. Flawed undoubtedly but utterly riveting.
Even by GH’s standards, this is an absolutely brilliant article - capturing Stokes’ good, bad and ugly with mastery of technique matching Tendulkar’s straight drives and flair reminding of Lara (there, I’m aging myself).
Gaining 2 time zones this week with family at Ningaloo (strongly recommended to anyone with even the slightest maritime inclination), I heard Athers on Kayo whispering to his director as the ECB’s words met the press, then for The Announcement to the viewers on tv, ironically before those at the ground, who spontaneously leapt in ovation, setting the scene for the grand Stokes theatre of the Folkes dismissal. That moment, for me was pure Stokes - much better articulated in GH’s article.
But then it turned bad, and ugly. Stokes’ last act would completely take the piss out of Test cricket, as if derobing BazBall for the fraud it is - right after watching Mitchell shelve all his aggressive tendencies for the betterment of his Team taking the fourth inning ask past 350 on an increasingly challenging deck. Elevating himself to opener (“going back to the well one last time for you lot” (sic)) and leading his team in 16 overs to more than 100 of those runs, but losing 4 wickets (except notably Root’s) and effectively handing NZ command of the match and Series.
It breathtakingly conveys utter selfishness, defiance and many other things. It harms Test cricket.
It might be mercurial at times, it might even win once in a while, but it’s not my definition of leadership.
Advantage Australia for the Ashes 2027, maybe, because English cricket needs leadership.
And still you have to bring up an innocuous incident which occurred during The Crimean War, Gideon ... a low blow that, likely, only Stoksey could have endured.
"It was magnificent, but it was not war." Bousquet.
I can't decide whether England batting in its second innings was the usual slog-fest or a celebratory flog-fest.
Do they know??