As Ben Stokes filibustered his way through his first press conference since the end of the Lord’s Test against New Zealand – and what innocent times they feel like now – it was clear that only one outcome in Nottingham this week will prevent full-scale meltdown. Victory, and any kind will do.
For the ECB, and the wider English game, the alternative does not bear thinking about.
It’s 14 years since England last lost a home series of more than two Tests, and that too came amid an off-field crisis, with Kevin Pietersen’s text messages contributing to the chaos that led to defeat by South Africa and the resignation of Andrew Strauss.
The difference this time is that the first neck on the block – should New Zealand follow their Oval triumph with success at a venue where they have won only once in 10 Tests, back in 1986 – will not be Stokes but managing director Rob Key. As one insider put it on Tuesday: ‘He’s feeling the heat.’
An England win at Trent Bridge, and a 2–1 series victory, may yet preserve the status quo, but it is unlikely to draw a line under the events of the past two-and-a-half weeks. And Stokes’s refusal to go into any meaningful detail about the fallout of his and Gus Atkinson’s ill-fated swerve to the Rex Rooms in Chelsea merely kicked the can down the road.
He admitted he had apologised to team-mates, not least because the furore overshadowed England’s three Oval debutants and left his close friend Joe Root in the lurch. Stokes said he was ‘hurt’ by the criticism Root received for his captaincy. But this was a mea culpa of a limited kind, and the ECB were not among its recipients.
This will be a decisive week for England’s leadership group. Returning captain Ben Stokes (left) insists he and coach Brendon McCullum (right) are ‘genuinely very good mates’ despite rumours their relationship had soured
Managing director Rob Key (left) is said to be ‘feeling the heat’ ahead of England’s series decider against New Zealand at Trent Bridge
In one sense, Stokes’s reluctance to open up was understandable. The headlines over the last fortnight have all been about him, to the detriment of English cricket in general and the Test team in particular. He had no choice but to say that his focus was on winning this game.
But the psychodrama of his relationship with Brendon McCullum will not go away, however hard both sides attempt to depict a united front, and nor will the question of Stokes’s future as captain. For the moment, he says he is not looking further than Nottingham. No one can say for sure he will retain his appetite for the job if England lose this week.
It used to be said that every Test match was a referendum on Bazball. Now, every utterance feels like a referendum on the power structure of English cricket.
‘It’s been a big misconception around me and Brendon,’ he said. ‘We obviously have a professional relationship, but we also have a relationship away from that. We are genuinely very good mates.
‘We’ve been through some testing times, been through some great times. Do we agree on everything? Absolutely not. Do we have discussions around things? Absolutely. Those discussions end with both of us getting to a place where we can make a good decision.’
Later, he told the BBC: ‘This is definitely the highest amount of pressure we’ve been under since me and Baz became coach and captain.’
Higher, then, even than the Ashes. The ECB may take at least some comfort from the fact Stokes understands the stakes. But the suits for whom he developed a disdain after the handling of his punch-up in Bristol in 2017 will have noted his repeated refusal to engage with questions about how supported he has felt.
It’s 14 years since England lost a home series of more than two Tests – and that came under a cloud of Kevin Pietersen’s text messages and the resignation of Andrew Strauss
‘This is definitely the highest amount of pressure we’ve been under since me and Baz became coach and captain’
The closest he came to removing the mask was when he said: ‘I’m not going to sit here and lie. Was I a bit frustrated by the process? Yes. Has the process finished? Yes. Are me and Gus back where we want to be? Yes.’
And there was a scarcely veiled message to the ECB when he spoke of the backing he had received from the fans – ‘not just of English cricket’ – ever since news emerged of his night on the tiles. ‘The love and support is something I don’t want overlooked,’ he said.
More a man of the people than a corporate beast, Stokes has plainly derived comfort from the public response. The ECB’s recognition that he, not they, would currently win a popularity contest has diminished their hand. And while his performance behind the microphone was not the car crash they might have been dreading, it did little to quell fears that Stokes can never be anything but the headline.
Towards the end of the press conference, he was asked by a member of the Nottinghamshire media team about his memories of Trent Bridge, where he helped regain the Ashes in 2015 and where Bazball got going in earnest thanks to Jonny Bairstow’s last-afternoon rampage against New Zealand four years ago.
‘Glad someone is asking me about the cricket, that’s good,’ said Stokes. If they’re still asking about the cricket by the end of this Test, the English game may be breathing a fraction more freely.
