Ben Stokes recently returned from a hamstring injury to lead an England side up 1-0 in a three-Test series against a dysfunctional Pakistan side on its knees, fit and ready to land the knockout blow to their rivals.
They went on to lose the next two matches and the series.
Stokes has lost six of his past nine Tests as skipper with the three wins coming on home turf against the perennially weakened West Indies side in July.
His overall record now stands at 17 wins, 11 losses and just the solitary draw when Manchester’s rain extended Australia’s Ashes reign last year.
After the initial Bazball blitz caught most of their opponents off guard in 2022, England under Stokes have won one of two Tests with New Zealand, beaten Ireland, Australia twice in five Ashes battles, India once in another five-match series and the three-game sweep of the Windies.
Stokes made a few odd choices in the Third Test loss at Rawalpindi, particularly with bowling changes and field placements when Pakistan’s tail wagged from 7-177 to almost double their total.
For all the gushing praise he receives from inside the England camp and many media flunkies in the UK, Stokes’ ultra-aggressive captaincy approach and funky field settings have a rocks or diamonds quality about them.
England can blame the wet weather in the Fourth Test all they want for cruelling their Ashes chances last year or even Alex Carey’s legitimate Jonny Bairstow dismissal if they are feeling particularly pompous, but Stokes’ premature decision to make an early declaration on day one of the series should be the moment in time that they regret the most.
They had a chance to put their foot on Australia’s throat from the outset but his gamble to have a crack at the openers before stumps backfired and swung the momentum of the match back in the touring team’s favour.
England coach Brendon McCullum made a rare departure from the usual Bazball rhetoric earlier this week when he admitted Stokes’ tactics were not God’s gift to cricketing captaincy.
But as is often the case with this cricketing cult, there were extenuating circumstances.
“That injury was quite a significant injury. He had to work incredibly hard to get back. As the driven athlete he is, he’s all-in when he does something. He had to put in a lot of graft there and subconsciously it can … not cloud things, but maybe you’re not quite as screwed down as you can be in terms of decision-making.”
Riiiiight. The hamstring is connected to the grey matter somehow. Well it is if your brain is located somewhere south of where it should be.
England captain Ben Stokes. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
Form wise, Stokes has not delivered at his usual match-winning rate since he took on the captaincy.
He’s hit just two tons in 29 Tests with the (c) next to his name, well down from his usual clip after smashing 11 in his previous 78 matches. His average of 33.8 is also down on his 35.76 when not burdened with the leadership.
Bowling wise, he’s been hampered by hamstring and knee problems and while his average of 29.65 is better than his career rate of 32.21, he’s only taken 35 wickets at a little more than one per match after bagging 168 in the first nine years of his career.
There was plenty of hand-wringing in Australia when Pat Cummins was appointed because it went against the tradition of a batter getting the captaincy.
Cummins has proved that whether the skipper is a batter or a bowler is not necessarily relevant but Stokes’ rollercoaster ride underlines how hard it is for an all-rounder to be able to juggle the demands of scoring runs and taking wickets on top of the rigorous demands of leadership.
Stokes is often compared to Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff, England’s two greatest all-rounders of modern times, who both struggled when handed the captaincy.
The best all-rounder of all time, West Indies legend Sir Garfield Sobers, is one of the few who managed to also captain his country for a lengthy stretch, leading the Caribbean collective in 39 Tests from 1965-72 before stepping down at the tail end of his career.
Imran Khan, often held up as the example of why an all-rounder can also be a leader, led Pakistan on 40 occasions over a decade from 1982 onwards before bowing out after the World Cup win in Melbourne.
But he resigned and regained the leadership on several occasions, often interchanging with Javed Miandad as skipper, but that may have been more due to the eternal vagaries of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s political machinations than Imran’s ability to hold the dual roles of captain and star all-rounder.
Imran Khan is a giant of Pakistani cricket. (Photo by S&G/PA Images via Getty Images)
Stokes, who made just 53 runs from his four knocks in Pakistan, is the kind of player who can blast his way back to form in the blink of an eye.
And there will have to be a sustained run of losses or worse form before there will be any concerns at ECB headquarters about his status as skipper.
The 33-year-old constantly looks drained or perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that he rarely looks like the player of four or five years ago who had pep in his step as he surged headlong into any challenge with bat or ball.
It should be noted that his latest hamstring injury occurred while playing franchise cricket in The Hundred competition in England – the kind of supplementary cricket which fills bank accounts but can shorten international careers.
Stokes, like his predecessor Joe Root, has one eye on next year’s Ashes tour which will likely be the prolific duo’s last chance to get their hands on the urn again before retiring.
Team Pakistan celebrates a 2-1 series victory over England at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. (Photo by Muhammad Sameer Ali/Getty Images)
The skipper again looks like he needs a break from it all but England are touching down in New Zealand next month for a three-Test series before they have white-ball tours of India and West Indies next year either side of the Champions Trophy in February.
Stokes has supposedly retired from ODIs and pulled out of the T20 World Cup earlier this year due to his chronic knee injury but when McCullum was recently announced as the white-ball coach on top of his Test duties, he left the door open for another return to the limited overs formats.
“If I am part of the white-ball teams’ plans going forward in any way, shape or form then great,” he said. “If I get the call, saying ‘do you want to come and play?’ It’s definitely going to be a ‘yes’.”
McCullum should be telling Stokes that he has got bigger fish to fry than worrying about short-form shenanigans.
England host India in a five-match series next year in their only red-ball fixtures before their tour of Australia.
They will be long shots for their mission Down Under even if Stokes is fit and firing but if he is struggling for form and his captaincy decisions continue to fluctuate wildly, then England’s faint Ashes chances will go up in smoke.
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