Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Exclusive: In an extended sit down with Telegraph Sport, Stokes talks tickets, white-ball cricket and the 2025 Ashes tour to Australia
Ben Stokes has called on ticket prices to be made cheaper and urged those inside the sport to stop saying “Test cricket is dying”.
The England Test captain was in attendance at Lord’s for last week’s victory over Sri Lanka despite his hamstring injury where just 9,000 fans attended the fourth day.
Stokes, who has missed both Test matches and will sit out the third and final encounter that begins on Friday, believes that the empty seats last Sunday did not indicate a lack of interest in the five-day game and wants terminology around the longer format to change.
“I don’t think that’s a reflection of Test cricket around the world or Test cricket here,” Stokes said. “I think it’s just a pretty easy thing to have been able to do on that fourth day – just make it a bit cheaper for people to come and watch. Pretty easy solution in my eyes.”
Amid concern about the vibrancy of Test cricket around the world, with even crowds to rival the fourth day at Lord’s far exceeding those in most of the 12 Test-playing nations, Stokes called for more optimism about the format’s future.
“Without Test cricket, I think cricket will die,” Stokes said, speaking at the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London. “I mean maybe saying Test cricket’s dying could probably stop being said – because it’s not, never will. It’s the best form of the game.”
Stokes also called on administrators to take better control of the saturated schedule. “It’s just pretty mad, isn’t it, how much cricket is being played – (it) probably needs to be looked at a bit.”
Recommended
As Telegraph Sport revealed, there are also concerns about the prospect of empty seats for the fourth day of the third Test against Sri Lanka at The Oval, which takes place on Monday. Around 13,000 tickets are currently unsold for the fourth day.
Marylebone Cricket Club has already announced that it will review its ticket policy after the swathes of empty seats on day four against Sri Lanka at Lord’s, where England closed out a 190-run victory to seal the series with a game to spare.
“We will be paying particular attention to the structure of fourth-day tickets in our pricing reviews given the way that Test cricket is now being played,” Guy Lavender, the chief executive and secretary of MCC, said in a statement.
Lavender said that a combination of the Test against Sri Lanka taking place “at the end of the school holidays”, and England’s crushing victory over West Indies – winning before lunch on the third day – had put off fans buying a fourth-day ticket.
The 2025-26 Ashes had long been marked out as the culmination of Ben Stokes’s project as England Test captain. No longer. With head coach Brendon McCullum committing to stay until the 2027 Ashes, his captain plans to remain in post alongside him.
“Absolutely,” Stokes says about taking England to the next home Ashes, speaking hours after McCullum’s new role as all-format head coach was confirmed. “I mean, look, in an ideal world – yes.
“A lot can happen, that’s three years away. Whether that’s my own decision or the decision that gets taken out of my hands, I don’t know. But yeah, I want to keep taking this team forward in the here and now and hopefully in the future.”
Since McCullum was appointed Test coach in May 2022, and Stokes was made permanent captain, England have won 19 out of 28 matches. Now, with the white-ball team floundering, just as the red-ball team were in 2022, McCullum is being tasked with overseeing a similar sporting and cultural rejuvenation.
McCullum, Stokes knows, is a difficult man to say no to. Asked whether he could play in major white-ball events, beginning with next February’s Champions Trophy, Stokes says, “it’s hard to turn down those sort of big events, isn’t it?
“If I didn’t play another white-ball game, I’ll be very content with how many games I’ve played and what I’ve been able to achieve. I don’t know what the plan is going forward, whether they see me being a part of that or not. I’m sure there’ll be some conversation at some point about that. And I’ll be happy either way.”
McCullum’s appointment aims to import the methods that have galvanised the Test side – liberating players, decluttering the dressing room, and encouraging more personal responsibility – to the white-ball side, working alongside captain Jos Buttler.
“It’s great for English cricket to have Baz in charge of both teams,” Stokes says. “His outlook on life, I think definitely is an attribute that he brings to being a coach.
“I know the influence that he’s had on the players within the Test team over the first two years in charge. And I’m very excited for the white-ball group to now experience Baz as well.
“He’s allowed me to lead and captain in the way that I’ve always wanted to, if I ever got the chance. How I see cricket, and how I’d love to be able to play – he’s allowed me to do that. So I think Jos is going to thrive having Baz as coach.”
An international white-ball return would make Stokes’s playing schedule even more intense. For Stokes, the relentless fixture list creates a need for outlets away from the pitch.
A little incongruously, the red-ball captain is in a basement of Red Bull Gaming Sphere in Shoreditch. The location reflects Stokes’s involvement with 4Cast, an athlete-led entrepreneurial collective. Stokes is indulging in one of his favoured pursuits: Call Of Duty.
“It’s certainly a bit of a hobby of mine,” Stokes says, smiling. He is one of a group of “hardcore” England gamers, alongside Jofra Archer and Liam Livingstone. Stokes plays Call of Duty just as he plays cricket: “quite aggressive – sometimes a little bit conservative, but that’s only 10 per cent of the time.
“It all grew from Covid really – lots of time to kill in between training sessions, in particular in games, when we ended up back playing but were stuck in the ground.”
Never was the distraction more necessary than when England last visited for the 2021-22 Ashes, beginning with a grim two-week quarantine period on the Gold Coast. The trip marked Stokes’s return to cricket after a break to prioritise his mental wellbeing; understandably, he was short of his best. In nine Tests down under, Stokes averages a modest 28.6 with the bat and 40.9 with the ball.
“I don’t think we’ll be heading there with that feeling of, ‘Oh, we’ve got unfinished business because of the last time’,” Stokes reflects. “Every Ashes series is its own event, its own occasion.
“We’ve not managed to win out in Australia since 2010-11, so it’s been a long time. And it’d be great to be able to come back from that tour regaining the Ashes.”
Halfway between the 2023 and 2025-26 Ashes series, the retirement of David Warner is Australia’s only major change in personnel. England’s approach has been more radical. Stuart Broad and James Anderson have both retired; Jonny Bairstow seems unlikely to play Test cricket again; Gus Atkinson, Jamie Smith and Shoaib Bashir have all emerged thrillingly.
There are hints that, after the chastening 4-1 defeat in India, Bazball has evolved into a new and more ruthless phase. In the chase of 205 against Sri Lanka on a turning pitch at Old Trafford, for instance, England scored at a relatively prosaic 3.6 an over.
“I think we’re just a better team,” Stokes says. “The best teams in the world are always wanting to improve every little thing. And we’ve definitely done that since India.
“I hate the word clinical, because clinical is a word that gets said based on the outcome of a decision that you make. It’s either clinical or not, if it goes well or not. But I think you look at all the times that we’ve been put under pressure, which has been quite a few times – we’ve handled it very well. We’ve got ourselves through those tough periods, and then we’ve ended up dominating the game. Potentially, last year, things might not have worked out as well.
“That’s a sign that the team’s progressed from where we were. Everyone understands and knows that if we want to be the best team in the world, then when we do get put under pressure, we probably assess that a lot better. And maybe we make some better decisions.”
After his appointment ushered in England’s new buccaneering style, “We were maybe a little bit one-dimensional when we were put under pressure in the first couple of years,” Stokes reflects. “Whereas now, I think we’re a lot better at maybe understanding the situation and giving ourselves a few more options.”
Before the summer, Stokes publicly declared that England’s decisions, especially moving on Anderson and a new emphasis on pace, were made with the next Ashes in mind.
“It’s just giving ourselves the best opportunity to be able to pick a squad that we think is going to give us the best chance of winning out in Australia,” he reflects. “We definitely know what we want.
“When it comes to Australia, we’re basically not leaving any stone unturned. That doesn’t mean we’re going to win it. We’re going out there to hopefully win, but it’s just about picking the 15 or 16 blokes to give us the best chance of winning.”
For England, perhaps most important of all is to have Stokes playing in his full capacity as an allrounder. His return to a full allocation of overs against West Indies was followed by a hamstring injury sustained in the Hundred. Though he batted in the nets at Lord’s, England are concerned about the risk of aggravating the injury. As such, Stokes’s return in the series in Pakistan, which begins on October 7, will be carefully managed. He is not guaranteed to be fit for the opening Test; even if he is, Stokes will be eased back into bowling.
“The thing with the injury that I had is that it’s a very high recurrence rate, so it’s about not pushing it too hard too early,” Stokes explains. “I’d rather take two weeks longer to give myself a chance of not re-injuring it.
“I feel absolutely great now. I don’t even feel like I’ve got an injury. But that’s the danger time where if you push yourself a little bit too hard, too early, then you can be back to square one, if not even worse.
“This is a long time out from bowling. And you have to build yourself back up again. So I’m just making sure that I’m doing all the right things.”
Yet Stokes has no concerns about his long-term capacity to bowl. “I first and foremost need to get the hamstring sorted, and then get the body going again and hopefully be back to doing what I was doing before I did this.”
For Stokes, working in a backseat role alongside McCullum during the Tests against Sri Lanka has provided him with a snapshot of a future post-playing career.
“I didn’t know how I would be before the first game,” he explains. “I was just at peace with the fact that I’m injured and I can’t play.
“I can’t see myself being someone who when the day comes when I do stop playing, I’ll just not be involved with cricket. I do see myself probably wanting to go down the route of being a coach. I think that’s just with my love for the game.
“When I’m done playing, I’d love to be able to try and affect a few people’s careers. I’ve spoken to Baz a lot – obviously he went into coaching quite quickly after quickly after finishing playing, and he absolutely loves it. He loves the fact that he can try and influence people to not only be successful, but just to keep reminding them that this is the best time of your life, playing professional cricket, so go there and enjoy it.
“That’s definitely my mantra towards the game. Now, being 33, having played a lot, I need to make sure that I enjoy every single day, through the good and through the bad.”
It invites the tantalising question. When he has eventually retired, could Stokes emulate McCullum and be England head coach one day? Stokes smiles. “Who knows?”