Joe Root and Ben Stokes are great mates; they’ve played with each other since they were children representing Yorkshire and Durham’s youth teams. Root even confessed this week in a moving dressing room tribute that Stokes had taught him his first swearword. There’s something symbolic in that, it almost feels like Stokes has been doing the same to English cricket over the last four years.
“It’s been a hell of a ride mate, I’ve loved every minute of playing alongside you,” Root goes on to say in the speech. “I’m so grateful I got to spend the journey with you.” Stokes is clearly choked up listening to his comrade pay tribute and also wonderfully uncomfortable in that particularly English way when someone is being earnest and speaking from the heart.
Stokes and Root have played together for England 225 times, they’ve experienced the highs of Ashes victory and World Cup wins together as well as the lows that punishing tours of India and Australia can inflict. Though Stokes has had the more turbulent time off the field, Root did have a notable early experience of making the front pages for the wrong reasons.
After a 48 run win over Australia in the Champions Trophy in 2013, players from both sides found themselves in a Birmingham bar late at night. Fair to say drink was taken, it was only a matter of days before that summer’s Ashes series was due to start. A 22-year-old Root, then nicknamed ‘The ‘Milkybar Kid’ by his teammates because of his blond and innocent appearance, found himself on the end of a drunken punch from Australia’s David Warner. Warner gave a risible explanation for the attack and was duly suspended for the first two Tests of the series. Nevertheless, the incident gave Root an insight, albeit on a far lesser scale, to what his friend would later experience.
Root’s calm and gentle manner might seem opposed to Stokes’ more rough-hewn characteristics but both men bring out the more hidden sides in the other. Theirs is a friendship borne out of respect and understanding. When Root gave up the captaincy he made a point of giving his all back in the ranks and subscribed wholeheartedly to Stokes’ new approach as leader.
“I just wanted to make sure he knew that I had his back,” Root told The Spin of that time. “That I was right in his corner and whatever was asked of me I was ready to do it. The amount of times when we were under pressure I’d throw the ball to Ben or he’d be the one that would stand up in big moments of games. I think it’s my time now is to try and pay that back and be that player for him.”
Stokes admitted he was pained to see how Root was criticised after stepping into the breach to lead a vastly inexperienced side at The Oval after the Rex Rooms fallout. It hurt Stokes to know that his actions put his friend in an impossible position and potentially re-opened some of the scars Root has from his own darker days experienced in the captain’s blazer.
At Trent Bridge on Saturday afternoon there was one shot that made it crystal clear England were going to win or lose the match in Stokes’ image. It wasn’t the whip for six that Harry Brook played to his first ball, nor even the backwards-roll scoop over the keeper for four to his next.
England were clearly trying to tap into those heady early days of BazBall, when Stokes had tried to free them up and show them the way by batting ultra aggressively, two fingers flicked to the consequences. Brook perished soon after, swishing a full ball from Zak Foulkes straight down fine leg’s throat. “What are they doing?!” came the bemused but jubilant cry from a celebrating New Zealand fielder passing the stump microphone. It was a thought echoed by those calling the scene on the TV and radio commentary. Less so by those in the crowd, though surely some had seen enough when Brook departed.
A balm settled over Trent Bridge as Joe Root was announced as the next batter and could be seen sprinting out to the middle to join Ben Duckett. Root will calm everything down. He’s like aloe vera in whites, Rooty – apply once liberally and repeat as required for fifteen years and counting.
Perhaps not. Root reverse ramped his second ball for four. The crowd took a sharp intake of breath and then celebrated as if they’d seen the winning runs hit. Root’s ramp is one of the indelible images of BazBall. He attempted it to Pat Cummins on the first ball of day four of the 2023 Edgbaston Ashes Test with the game on the line. He missed but the statement was made, undeterred he ramped Scott Boland for a six and a four in the next over.
The Ramp didn’t always run smooth. Root attempted it to Jasprit Bumrah a year later in Rajkot but mis-executed and was caught. His wicket precipitated a collapse that saw England blow the Test. A furore ensued, with Root maintaining that the shot might look high stakes but was actually a percentage option. In May, The Spin asked Root whether we might see the ramp deployed this summer. “We’ll see,” he replied, a smile curling.
Root’s early evening ramp off Nathan Smith on Saturday was a beautiful, even emotional moment. Here was the sensible man on the stag do with his top off, dancing on the bar. Here was Root, for one last time the Sundance Kid to Stokes’s Butch Cassidy, joining his partner in running head first into a hail of bullets. Anything for you, old pal.
Root is now the only player that survives from that first BazBall Test at Lord’s in 2022. Further still, he’s seen Cook, Anderson, Broad and now Stokes leave the scene. But he will play on, shepherding new faces with a half an eye on Sachin in the distance. England have one all-time great remaining. His best mate departing in a blaze, Joe Root stands alone among the embers.
Stokes sets fire to the house he built
Of course it ended where it all began in earnest four years ago; will they ever get the scorch marks out of Nottingham? Ben Stokes razed BazBall to the ground at Trent Bridge to bring one of the most thrilling, confounding, cortex scrambling and divisive periods of English Test cricket to a close.
In June 2022, Jonathan Marc Bairstow began panning sixes with wild-eyed abandon into the Trent Bridge bleachers to immolate New Zealand’s fourth innings target of 299 inside fifty overs. Four years later, the man who had expressly told Bairstow to light it up was burning it down with a faraway look in his own.
To witness the whole thing was remarkable. The news of Stokes’ impending retirement spread round Trent Bridge like a tinder fire at 3.25pm. The announcement was choreographed but the reaction couldn’t have been. In a few murmured moments the crowd rose to their feet, cheered, clapped and even roared for Stokes as he stood at the top of his bowling mark at the Radcliffe Road End of the ground. It was instinctive and impulsive, just like the man himself.
Of course he took a wicket with the next ball. Great players bend the game to their will and Stokes’ entire career is stitched with moments such as these. Botham-esque? Flintoff-like? No, this was entirely Stokesian.
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An hour later he ran out to bat to a mixture of excitement and disbelief, two of the central tenets of BazBall ticked off in one move. Some have said this was self-indulgent and self-harming to his sides chances of success. Perhaps, but none in the crowd seemed to think so. They were busy living and breathing the last fumes, all too aware they were witnessing a piece of sporting theatre, bearing witness to the end of something.
The few seconds when New Zealand’s Nathan Smith or Zak Foulkes ran into bowl at Stokes were electric in their stillness and silence. The collective outward breath of release when Stokes clipped a single to get off strike was palpable. The braver members of the crowd feeling like they could make eye contact or mutter a few words. Stokes stood surveying the scene from the non-striker’s end like a doomed emperor, flames licking off his shoulders.
And then it was over. Stokes was caught hacking to midwicket, Daryl Mitchell’s catch sucking the air and hope out of Trent Bridge in a split second. That was it, he was gone. The end of Ben Stokes as Test match cricketer. After the final act, the last rites will surely follow.
Stat of the week
England’s women chased down a target of 164 with 16 balls to spare against New Zealand at The Oval this week, equalling their own record for the highest successful run chase in Women’s T20 World Cups.
Could it be a sign? That first time England chased 164 was against Australia at The Oval in the semi-final of the 2009 tournament. They went on to lift the trophy. Ah, hold on a minute. Anything you can do… Australia (who else?) went on to break the record a matter of hours later, hauling down 171 at Lord’s to knock out Harmanpreet Kaur’s India.
Quote of the week
Not just as a captain, but as a friend, you know, someone you can always go to, mid-off, mid-on … wherever he is, you can always come; you bounce ideas off him. It’s going to be a big miss. I think the hardest part is to imagine the changing room without him.”
Jofra Archer pays an emotional tribute to Ben Stokes at Trent Bridge.
Memory lane
August 1999 | Nasser Hussain’s England side suffered a 2-1 series defeat by New Zealand. After the final Test match at the Oval, Hussain was booed and jeered by England fans as the result saw his side fall to the bottom of the unofficial world rankings. Hussain added grit and backbone to England over the coming years, instilling a sense of belief and moulding the core of Michael Vaughan’s side that would go on to reclaim the Ashes in 2005 after 16 long years.
