There is some brutality in Ben Stokes’ decision to retire. On the fourth afternoon at Trent Bridge, with the Test still alive and tea approaching, he announced that this would be his last game for England. Not at the end of the series, well wrapped up by a guard of honor and orchestral music, but in the middle of the story, where he seemed to be playing a lot of his cricket. Ek lamha ruk jao—wait a moment—and the time was already gone.I have spent much of my adult life being told that Test cricket is dying, that five-day cricket is a colonial colony awaiting economic depression. Then came a left-hander born in Christchurch and raised in Cumbria, who thought, almost to himself and with conviction, that the patient was restless. He called it Bazball, after the coach, because the English always liked to name their turnovers after a good Antipodean. Yet it was Stokes who batted as if the scorecard was an insult to himself, who said when wise men could settle down to survive, and who changed the dead rubber and lost cause in the only form of cricket that seemed to interest him.There is a Headingley in 2019, yes, because there always is. England were bowled out for 67 in the first innings, chasing 359, reached 286 for 9, and had only Jack Leach, whose contribution amounted to moral support. What followed was less than a confrontation with the same potential. Stokes won because, somehow, Stokes usually won. Leach’s solo run has become one of the most iconic in cricket history, while at the other end the man seemed determined to prove mathematically that he had overplayed his hand.
The numbers, while impressive, have always felt incomplete. More than 7,200 Tests, more than 240 wickets before the last match, fourteen years of Tests, and a batting average that the opposition continues as if it ends the debate. It does not establish anything. Stokes was no ordinary man. He was of the moment, and moments have a tendency to be difficult to resist mathematics. 258 in Cape Town, the fastest Test 250 ever scored, tells you more about him than any spreadsheet. The meaning is for professionals. Stokes acted in extremes, in tamasha, in the unexpected stories that grandparents tell children that they politely pretend they have never heard.
What I keep coming back to, though, is that the first half of his career didn’t seem like a hagiography. There was Bristol, a row, an arrest, a missed Ashes, a vice-captain sacked, and a history that seemed unaltered. There was Carlos Brathwaite in Kolkata, sending four consecutive runs into the stands and, with them, all the comforting thoughts that the game’s redemption followed a straight line. For a while, Stokes became the warning sign of English cricket.That he rebuilt himself in his conscience, perhaps, is a great achievement. He spoke openly about mental health while elite sports still see risk as a management flaw. He left the game forever and, in doing so, quietly allowed others to do the same. He had a body that often seemed held together by surgery, stiffness and faith alike. These are the innings that the highlight reels no longer play.And so he leaves, not at the end of the series, where the meeting would have liked him, but in the middle of the Trials, and tea is approaching and the results are not over. That is the end of Ben Stokes that can be imagined. For more than a decade, he played as if he were just another opponent to wear down. Now he has decided to announce the end of the game before he can participate.Khuda Hafiz, Ben.The fourth innings always has signs and statistics. It may take some time to find another man willing to take it as an idea.
