Sign up now ><\/a><\/p>\nStokes is in danger of ending his tenure as the captain of an English side beaten by New Zealand on home soil, for the hosts needed another 270 runs to win the series with only six wickets in hand.<\/p>\n
In a surprising move, the all-rounder opened the batting late on Day 4 and made a rapid 30 off just 20 balls before losing his wicket.<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old, who led England to a 4-1 loss in last summer\u2019s disastrous Ashes tour of Australia, was reportedly considering his future after the furore that unfolded following the first Test.<\/p>\n
But after England suffered a heavy defeat at The Oval under former skipper Joe Root, he returned to the squad for this week\u2019s match.<\/p>\n
Playing in his 122nd Test match, he snared a wicket shortly after it became public his 15-year red ball career was about to finish.<\/p>\n
Stokes, who had served as England\u2019s captain for four years, did not rule out the prospect this could be his final match when quizzed in a pre-Test press conference last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe England captaincy is one of those things where I\u2019m 35 now and, even before this stuff all happened, I thought, \u2018Could I ever see myself playing for England and not being captain?\u2019\u201d he told the BBC prior to the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a question I\u2019ve never really been able to answer, because it\u2019s been such a big part of this part of my career.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at others who have stepped away from captaincy and kept playing – I don\u2019t really know. I love playing for England. I love being captain of this team and that\u2019s where I\u2019m at with everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
It remains a stunning development and comes just a year prior to England hosting Australia in the Ashes on home soil.<\/p>\n
Wisden\u2019s leading cricketer of the year in 2019, 2020 and 2022, Stokes was a key contributor to England\u2019s triumph in the home World Cup in 2019 when making 84 against the Kiwis in one of the best white-ball games ever played.<\/p>\n
He subsequently led the English team through a resurgent \u2018Bazball\u2019 era in partnership with coach Brendon McCullum.<\/p>\n
But the cavalier approach to cricket came unstuck on Australian soil despite the hosts being without champions Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon for much of the summer.<\/p>\n
It prompted a review of England\u2019s leadership hierarchy but ultimately Stokes and the key architects of the Bazball period held their positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an extraordinary moment, a stunning moment, and it begs a number of questions \u2014 why and why now?\u201d former England captain Michael Atherton told Sky Sports of Stokes retirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the middle of a day\u2019s cricket with still a day to go with a match to win, draw or lose and a series on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another former England captain, Michael Vaughan, also weighed in on the snap timing.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly something has triggered in his mind,\u201d Vaughan told the BBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at his contract that he\u2019s got until next year – there\u2019s a home Ashes series next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were so many rumours about fallouts but I do hope that wasn\u2019t the case, I hope that he just woke up one morning and said he\u2019d had enough. He\u2019s given it everything for such a long period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atherton lauded Stokes\u2019 contribution as skipper and related to the burden he had carried.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been an outstanding England captain throughout that journey,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first couple of years, it was a transformation the likes of which few of us have seen of a sporting a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t gone to plan in the last year. And I have to say, we were there at Lord\u2019s, and those of us who\u2019ve been in that job recognised that he\u2019d come to the end of the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looked like a man who\u2019d been captain of England for four years. A lot of us did it for about that time. It is a wearing job, one that gets on top of you and that you can\u2019t let go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stokes is considered one of the best all-rounders to play Test cricket, as demonstrated by his 7243 runs and 251 wickets leading into this Test. <\/p>\n
West Indian icon Sir Garfield Sobers and South Africa\u2019s Jacques Kallis are the only two other men to have achieved such a double, and the 136 sixes Stokes smashed in Test cricket is also a record.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m pretty happy and content with everything I\u2019ve managed to do,\u201d Stokes added on Sky Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m an Ashes winner, I\u2019ve won a 50-over World Cup, a T20 World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve also had the opportunity to captain the team and play alongside some of the best players to have played the game. There\u2019s not too much I can complain about, really.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England captain Ben Stokes has declared he will retire from international cricket at the end of the current…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-766523","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\/766523","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=766523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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