In 1999, New Zealand came back from losing the first match to win a Test series in England 2-1. The hosts were booed off at the Oval, following an 83-run defeat. The next edition of the rankings confirmed that they were the worst team in the world.
This week, New Zealand came back from losing the first match to win a Test series in England 2-1. The hosts should have been booed off at Trent Bridge, following a 160-run defeat. The World Test Championship table has England seventh out of nine.
First, the good bit. As in 1999, New Zealand played some sensational cricket, demonstrating again their ability to wring every last bit of performance from a relatively shallow talent pool. Their leading batsman, Kane Williamson, announced his retirement after the first match. His replacement, Henry Nicolls, scored a century at the Oval. Blair Tickner was concussed by a Jofra Archer delivery at Trent Bridge. The substitute, Zak Foulkes, took three England wickets in the first innings. Fast bowlers Matt Henry and Kyle Jamieson and batsman Glenn Phillips were all forced out with injuries, but their stand-ins, Ben Sears and Mitchell Santner, made important contributions. New Zealand were worthy winners and remain an extremely admirable team.
England, by contrast, have disrespected the series throughout. Ben Stokes made an unwise decision to stay out celebrating victory in the first Test beyond the midnight curfew agreed by the national team director, Rob Key, and the coach, Brendon McCullum. By all accounts he was unfortunate to have been in the room when the altercation broke out between a Saracens rugby player and his England team-mate Gus Atkinson. Keen to be showing the discipline that was absent from the tour of New Zealand and Australia last winter, Key and McCullum dropped Stokes and Atkinson, pending an investigation. McCullum suggested he was worried about Stokes’ mental health.
It turns out that Stokes was merely furious. He was unaware that the curfew applied after the end of a match. McCullum admitted that it would be wise to write down the terms of any future curfew to avoid ambiguity. Key suggested players remained so ill-disciplined that they might need to be subject to a total ban on alcohol while on England duty.
With no case to answer, Stokes was brought back into the team for the series decider and apologised to his teammates for letting them down. There was no such apology from Key or the ECB. But Stokes had one more card to play. In the afternoon session of the fourth day, he announced that he would retire from international cricket at the end of the match. He refused to be the ECB’s whipping boy any longer. As word got around, the crowd applauded its captain.
Then something even weirder happened. New Zealand set England a formidable (but not impossible) 373 to win in the final innings of the series. Stokes promoted himself to the top of the order, demoting the man England had chosen to open, Emilio Gay. The captain then thrashed at everything New Zealand sent his way, before he was caught at midwicket for a frenzied 30 off 20 balls. This was sentimentalism, not smart cricket. Stokes suggested afterwards that he opened for tactical reasons. Of course Stokes would say this, because it was the only palatable response. But during Bazball’s greatest fourth-innings hits – Trent Bridge 2022, Edgbaston 2022, Headingley 2025 – the batting order was kept the same. Harry Brook then performed a Stokes tribute act – 21 off nine balls – and the series was done.
Brook is still vice-captain, but his game has regressed
For fans of Test cricket, including those in the grounds who had stumped up for expensive tickets, the series was a grim business. The build-up was overshadowed by the debate over whether or not McCullum should have kept his job after the Ashes, combined with dismay over his decision to take an extended holiday rather than watch England hopefuls in the early rounds of the county championship. The second match disappeared behind Stokes’ suspension and the third was, quite literally, drowned out by news of his retirement. Meanwhile, England were deducted as many World Test Championship points for slow over rates as they gained from their single Test win.
Stokes’ premature retirement has caused a real problem for Key and McCullum. After the trio were kept on following the Ashes, the plan was clearly for Stokes to remain as captain until after the next contest with Australia in a year’s time. There is no successor. Brook is still vice-captain, but his game has regressed and his altercation in New Zealand means he cannot be appointed a permanent captain. Root has always been a game but limited captain, as was on show again at the Oval.
Wisden’s Cameron Ponsonby is of the view that Stokes is trying to flush out Key and/or McCullum before he makes a return, rested and refreshed, to face Australia next year. It is a credible theory, but only because the past month has been so surreal. Whether Stokes is really gone, or merely on strike, it is a desperate shame to see English cricket descending into the chaos and factionalism of the past.
Comments