Don’t blame Ben Stokes

So what was the best bit of this dispiriting Ashes series? Lucky you if you’ve found one, but for me – at the time of writing, before Jacob Bethell was belatedly allowed to unfurl his brilliance – it was the moving homage to the heroes of the Bondi massacre at the start of the Sydney Test. It was flawlessly executed, unlike a great deal of the cricket: a group of first responders, including paramedics, lifeguards, police and Ahmed al-Ahmed, the shopkeeper who disarmed one of the terrorists, were given a guard of honour as applause and cheers flooded the ground. If it didn’t bring a tear to the eye, check your pulse.

Otherwise, what have we learned? The England bowling has often been shocking and toothless, with Matthew Potts, Brydon Carse and Josh Tongue among the more dismal bowling attacks in Test history. Elsewhere, I feel sorry for Ben Foakes of Surrey, the best wicketkeeper/batsman in England, marginalised to make way for Jamie Smith, who is not even his county’s main keeper. And how has that worked out? Smith has become a figure of fun, with one of the worst dismissals in Test cricket. And did Shoaib Bashir deserve to be humiliated in front of two nations in quite the way the England management have handled the 22-year-old off spinner? He could have been left to develop at county level. Why build a kid up in this way and then set him up for a fail? Bazball has always been an odd set-up, often seeming arrogant to the outside world, but it had never felt unpleasant towards its own before.

What of the leadership? Whisperit, but is Ben Stokes actually a good leader? Certainly he has been an amazing cricketer, though out of form with the bat now and tactically exhausted. He has reshaped the way his team play, but it’s not clear that this has been a wholly positive thing. I’m not sure it’s good leadership if you have been leading your troops to slaughter.

Stokes seems to care about his players, even with all that ‘weak men’ claptrap (it’s a game of cricket, Ben, not the first days of the Somme), but he has arguably exposed them to more hostile scrutiny than necessary. You have to feel for the lads being called weak by their skipper, not because there’s not an element of truth but because it’s not really their fault. They are simply doing what they have been told to do for the past four years. Anyway, Stokes has now redefined Bazball as a sort of ‘context-dependent’ style of cricket, which I struggle to distinguish from, erm, cricket.

But should he step down? Probably not. He has a great deal of courage and has said he wants to stay on to lead an English team who aren’t that good. He bowled his heart out in Sydney to mask the failings of Carse and Potts. I don’t think anyone would blame him if he said: ‘I’ve done my bit. Now someone else have a go.’ He certainly shouldn’t be made a scapegoat, although we should be aware of his limitations as a leader, and the limitations of his players. But whatever we think of Bazball, icing the skipper is not the best way forward.

Look at football, if you must, to see the difficulties of picking Premier League managers. Liam Rosenior used to be a reasonable player and is clearly a most likeable bloke. However, he was sacked as a manager by Hull in the Championship and his current team is seventh in France’s Ligue 1, which is practically Scottish in its feebleness. Yet across the entire world of football, he’s the man to take Chelsea forward, apparently.

Is a better answer actually lying right under Chelsea’s noses at the academy? John Terry, one of their greatest ever players, might not be liberal London’s favourite dinner guest – but he could in time be just the man for Stamford Bridge.