What now for cricket star after nightclub incident and what it means for the Ashes against Australia
It’s time for Ben Stokes to give up the England captaincy.
Not solely because of the London nightclub fracas that made global headlines overnight, but because it is clear that, after four years as England’s charismatic leader, he needs to think about his longevity in the game.
The last thing that England, or cricket in general, wants to see is Stokes retiring from international cricket in circumstances where he looks and sounds fed up with the morass of responsibilities that come with leadership.
Stokes, England, and Australia for that matter would all prefer to see him at his best in one more Ashes series, influencing games with the bat, the ball and in the field, and enjoying himself while doing so.
A fraying attitude was made clear by Stokes’ decision to defy the midnight curfew imposed by the ECB after an Ashes tour beset by poor performances on the field and misbehaviour off it.
Stokes and England seam bowler Gus Atkinson were out in a Chelsea nightclub beyond the team’s curfew after the Lord’s Test against New Zealand, and were involved in an altercation with a Saracens rugby player.
It is alleged that the rugby player threw a punch at Atkinson that ended up striking an ECB security officer, who was accompanying the cricketers. The episode is being independently investigated by the ECB cricket regulator.
Stokes’ decision to kick-on after so much hand-wringing about player behaviour, and pointed words from England coach Brendon McCullum and team director Rob Key in the months since the 4-1 defeat in Australia, showed poor judgment. Perhaps also a degree of frustration about being unable to let his hair down as captain.
But this episode goes deeper than late-night drinking and carousing. Either side of England’s victory over New Zealand to open their home Test summer, Stokes hardly sounded like someone relishing the prospect of captaining the team for another two years to get to another Ashes bout with Australia next June.
On match eve, Stokes volunteered the fact he would turn 35 during the game, and spoke of the physical and mental load of being both an all-rounder and the captain.
“Over a long period of time, you bowl a lot of overs, you’re standing in the field, you’re thinking about captaining and batting is mentally tiring as well. You then come off the field, and you’re getting that off and then getting this on. Over time, it can get a bit tiring. You sort of just go, ‘Right, how can I give myself the best chance of being the best version of myself, as long as I can?’”
Captaincy has a corrosive effect over time. Many a leader has admitted this in hindsight, whether they are players to whom the job did not come naturally, like Allan Border, or those who were widely seen as gifted frontmen, like Ian Chappell.
It’s tougher, still, when the running and performance of the team are not functioning smoothly. Under Stokes, England played some superbly fearless cricket for a couple of years, but since the emotional high of the Oval Test against Australia in July 2023, the team’s results have trended down.
In parallel, England’s off-field issues have compounded, as the team wrestled with a balance between the free-spirited ways that defined the “Bazball” revolution, and the more-disciplined choices required by a team truly wishing to be considered among the best in the world.
England’s opponents over that time have long wondered at the sustainability of a regime comprising a self-named “Firestarter” such as Stokes, and the beers, horses and golfing ways of McCullum. Physically, Stokes’ body has struggled to cope with the task, and his once awe-inspiring batting has trailed off badly.
But as big an issue is the accumulated grind of being captain, introducing a philosophy that worked up to a point, then wrestling with its shortcomings both on and off the field. Choosing to carry on as leader, possibly because it is felt that the wayward Harry Brook is not yet ready for the job, is a noble decision.
But it also takes bravery to admit that the time is up. Times correspondent and former England captain Mike Atherton wrote vividly in his autobiography about how he stayed on too long as captain. He had the opportunity to quit in the afterglow of a narrow Test victory over Australia at the Oval in 1997, but instead found himself persuaded to carry on for an unhappy Caribbean tour.
“My mind was obsessed with cricket and the captaincy,” he wrote. “I was becoming completely self-absorbed, to the detriment of those around me.”
After defeating New Zealand, some hours before he headed out into the London evening, Stokes sounded a million miles from the free-thinking leader who had replaced Joe Root in 2022.
“I was obviously very, very happy that we won this week,” Stokes said. “I knew how big this game was in terms of the result, and how it was going to be perceived externally if it didn’t go well. I probably won’t be real happy and smiling until I get up there and share a proper beer with the boys because I have to come here and do this – no disrespect to you guys [the media].”
That “proper beer” got big on Stokes, who is now expected to take time away from the game. It may well be time for Stokes to have a quiet chat with Root, his close friend and teammate, who had made his own admission about the wages of leadership four years ago.
“It was the right decision for the group, first and foremost, but also for me personally, I wasn’t myself,” Root had said. “I was coming home from series, and I wasn’t able to switch off or be present with my family. I could see myself as a shadow of the person that I want to be.”
Without that kind of perspective, cricket risks losing Stokes entirely before next year’s Ashes battle.
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Daniel Brettig is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X.
