{"id":608833,"date":"2026-04-15T16:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/608833\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T16:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:40:10","slug":"ben-stokes-england-captain-might-not-be-here-after-being-hit-in-face-by-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/608833\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Stokes: England captain ‘might not be here’ after being hit in face by ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of the Ashes criticism centered around the squad’s relationship with alcohol after their mid-series trip to Noosa.<\/a><\/p>\n

It also emerged after the Ashes that white-ball captain Harry Brook had an altercation with a nightclub bouncer<\/a> during a trip to New Zealand last year.<\/p>\n

Stokes said some criticism was “harsh and unneeded”, but “a lot of it was warranted”.<\/p>\n

“A lot of it was almost put forward in a way that was a bit extreme, but when you look at it deep deep deep you agree with some of it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We have got ourselves to blame for a lot of it.<\/p>\n

“If you can’t take that and aren’t willing to understand that and listen to a little bit of it, then we wouldn’t see any progression.”<\/p>\n

Stokes, McCullum and managing director Rob Key kept their jobs following an ECB review into the Ashes.<\/p>\n

Stokes, who turns 35 on the opening day of the first Test against New Zealand on 4 June, said he did not consider standing down or retiring.<\/p>\n

“I actually went the other way,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It completely and utterly consumed me. I feel like I would be able to switch off for half an hour and then would get my iPad out and start making notes.<\/p>\n

“If I got back and shut myself away, didn’t pay any interest and say ‘we will see what happens – I will let other people make decisions’, I think that is me subconsciously saying I don’t want this.<\/p>\n

“How I was proved I am proper in this still.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of the Ashes criticism centered around the squad’s relationship with alcohol after their mid-series trip to Noosa.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-608833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}