Ben Stokes has announced that he is retiring from international cricket on Sunday, bringing an end to a 15-year career that made him one of England’s greatest ever cricketers.
The 35-year-old announced the decision on the fourth day of the third Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge, revealing the decision to his teammates in the dressing room on Sunday morning before it became public 15 minutes before tea, while England were in the field.
“It was shock,” Stokes said of the dressing room reaction, adding that head coach Brendon McCullum “was pretty taken aback.”
Stokes retires after 122 Tests, 114 one-day internationals and 43 T20s. He finishes with 7,273 runs and 252 wickets in Test cricket, making him only the second player in history, after South Africa’s Jacques Kallis, to complete the double of 7,000 Test runs and 250 wickets.
“It might sound quite selfish but this decision is genuinely the best thing for me right now,” Stokes told Sky Sports. “I hope it’s the best thing for the team going forward but I also hope it’s what will allow me to keep loving this game that has given me so much,” he added.
Stokes said that he had been considering retirement since England’s 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia last winter and had further thoughts during the first Test of the summer at Lord’s, which he described as “a very, very strange week” that “brought back some negative feelings” about where he stood in his career.
“I’d worked so hard since getting home to put things right, or at least that’s what I thought I was doing. I put so much time and effort into doing that and I just burned myself out,” he said.
He also addressed the nightclub incident that led to his absence from the second Test at The Oval, where the ECB launched an investigation before eventually clearing him. He said that controversy “added” to his decision but was not the direct cause.
“There was a build-up to it, how things were during the whole week at Lord’s and then another moment when I sat next to Joe Root in the dressing room. Obviously another scenario happened that added to it. It’s never easy with me, is it,” he remarked wryly.
A week playing for his county Durham in between Tests gave Stokes clarity.
“Over the last 12 months there’s been certain moments where I felt like I haven’t loved it. Last week back with Durham, there wasn’t a moment when I didn’t,” he said. “Being able to compare being back with my county and here, to not feel that sense of love and complete and utter enjoyment like I have done before, you just know.”
Root, who gave up the England captaincy in 2022, was one of the first to learn of the decision on Saturday night. Stokes said the two had spoken at length. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever been asked to do, captain this team and captain this country. But there’s another side to it all that people don’t see and don’t understand. As good as it is, there are bits where it does drain you, and does affect you in an emotional way.”
Stokes marked the occasion in characteristic fashion, taking a wicket with his first delivery after the announcement went public, then promoting himself to open England’s second innings for a chaotic 30 off 20 balls. Root described it as “the most Ben thing ever.”
Stokes made his Test debut in Adelaide during the 2013-14 Ashes. He was part of England’s 2019 50-over World Cup winning squad and the T20 World Cup-winning side in 2022, and played the defining innings of the 2019 Ashes at Headingley. Since taking over as Test captain in 2022, he and McCullum built the aggressive style of play that became known as Bazball.
With the Test side not in action for seven weeks after Trent Bridge, England have time to identify a successor. Harry Brook, who captains the white-ball teams, has been Stokes’s vice-captain in red-ball cricket.
