Stokes’s retirement reveals truth about great showman

Despite the chaos in Nottingham, the former England captain remained true to his beliefs in his final Test match

- CAMERON PONSONBY AT TRENT BRIDGE

There are things that annoyed me yesterday, that I won’t care about tomorrow.

The finale of Ben Stokes’s retirement was fantastical, and at times farcical. In the moments when you let your inner cynic win, Stokes’s main-character mantra can grate. The ninth over of a spell begins in 30C heat and you realise that ah, yes, Ben’s putting on his show again. Everyone look at Ben. The man who prides himself on going to the well, even if a tap’s right there.

The timing of his retirement was arranged so that the news would break when New Zealand were seven or eight wickets down in their innings, with the plan for Stokes to open the batting already in place. So Stokes retires and the crowd goes sad. Then Stokes opens the batting and the crowd goes happy. Simple.

“Who writes his scripts?”, is always the question attached to the eternal miracle maker. And as it turns out, it’s a combination of his management team, Michael Lumb and Neil Fairbrother, and England’s communications department. How romantic.

But what actually happened next you couldn’t script. As Trent Bridge rose to applaud Stokes, who was at the top of his mark and about to start the eleventh over of his spell (everyone look at Ben), he ran in, forced an edge from Zak Foulkes and set off on a celebration lap of the ages. It was magic.