England vs New Zealand: Stokes says goodbye as NZ wrap up series win

0:01Yeah, gone, gone, he gets his fairytale ending. An ippet way to go to a Test Match 100. The London Spirit of First Time win is the most remarkable thing you'll probably ever see in cricket. 604 and final Test wicket for Stuart Ball. It's ended when the T20 won't happen. Can you believe it? Moments after Stokes' international career is coming to an end. Another wicket for this incredible cricketer. You found the Daily Review on day five, which ends with New Zealand winning the Crow Thorpe Trophy, their 2-1 victory being the first time they've ever turned down, turned over a 1-0 deficit in any Test match series in their history.

0:48And for England, it ends in tears, you would say. I've got Simon Dole and Kumar Sangakara alongside me. I'll start with you, Dooley. sensational performance from the Kiwis. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I think from 1-0 down at Lourdes to turn it around at the Oval, courtesy of some great performances across the board, particularly Matt Henry, and then to come here, good toss to win at Trent Bridge, you would have to say, but then Latham and Conway's performance, backed up by a relatively less experienced bowling attack that New Zealand would have hoped to have throughout the series, I thought was simply superb and you go back to you know 86 and 99 and that was a short test series wasn't in 21 and now this this year 26 so New Zealand don't come here they don't win often when they do come here and England haven't lost often when they're here as well.

1:412012 was the last time we lost a series of three or more. When Kane Williamson left one of the quotes he said when he left was he feels like he's leaving the team in a better place to move forward without him and I think the last two Test Masters have shown that and Tom Latham's captaincy and just been backed up by different performances in every moment of the game when it was needed. So absolutely superb and so proud of the group of guys. Kumar, key players for New Zealand for you? I mean, as Dooley says, they shared it around a bit, but the key men? I would say in this particular test, Darrell Mitchell So you had Rajin Ravindra coming in after kind of an odd shot in the first innings.

2:25You've had Glenn Phillips in the previous games. You had their bowling attack. Matt Henry not playing here. Kyle Jamison not playing here. Zach Falks coming in as a concussion sub. But Falks, Nathan Smith. You had Sears contributing and getting an important wicket. You had Sandler coming in on bowling as well as I know him to bowl, but that's a hallmark of New Zealand cricket, isn't it? If I can cast my mind back to, since I remember playing against them, one of the things that they took a lot of pride in is being disciplined and detailed. They're very meticulous in their planning. They have various different kinds of batters and bowlers.

3:06Some are quite flamboyant, very few of them, but the other is very workmanlike. But one thing they do is once they buy into what the side needs, they just keep chipping away, competing and doing it day in, day out and leaving room for the Williamsons, the Flemings, the Bonds, the Bolts and others to come and, you know, do something a little bit more special at times. And this is a classic case in sharp contrast to what I would say England in this series was the detailed discipline focus of we're here to win a series. You mentioned Kane Williamson there at Kumar. Obviously, an enormous amount of fanfare, and it's kind of overshadowed the back end of this Test match, and to some extent, quite annoyingly, actually, overshadowed New Zealand's performance or their achievement.

3:56But Kane being the type of player that he was, and the way that he left the scene was very understated. Is that New Zealanders in a nutshell, or was that just him in particular? I think it's probably New Zealanders in a nutshell, to be honest. We'll hear a lot more about Ben Stokes in the next few weeks, I guess, and when he talks about why, he said he would leave that till well afterwards. But Kane was, I believe, just sitting on the balcony after he got out, looking around thinking, you know what, this team is in a good spot. It's in a good place for me to live. I'm not feeling it right now, and I guess we all have come to that realisation at some stage where you're just not feeling it.

4:42You're not feeling like you want to get up and do the training and put in those yards anymore, and maybe you're mentally and physically just not able to do it. But you go out in a nice way. Yeah, but there are times in anyone's career, maybe in the middle, not only towards the end, where you might wake up one day and think, what are you doing? Because you've just been frustrated, things haven't gone your way, you're not getting runs or you're upset or something's just not right. But there are times when you have to just fight through it. Yeah. Because you have to have that pride and self-respect to say, no, no, you have to know yourself.

5:17Am I still a good cricketer? Can I still do what's required for the side? Can I still score the runs, win games, contribute? And make that decision. And then towards the end of your career, when you've achieved and when you've done all of that, when you've won games and when you've been in the thick of the fight, There are times when you know it's not just the fact that you don't want to play, you know it's time. And the point about what you mentioned on Kane-Williams, believing something better. Not everyone has the opportunity to really say that, but a lot of players, these great players, do.

5:47And that is ultimately the real test, isn't it? What have I done? What's my legacy? But at the same time, you've got to be content walking away. Mm-hmm. Which brings me very nicely to Ben. we've managed to get through most of the first six or seven minutes of the review without mentioning him. But that was the question that I came in here with, really. Has Ben Stokes left the England team in a better place than when he found it? Now, when he took over, England had won one test match in 17 under Joe Root. Things were at a pretty low ebb. And there have been some enormous highs throughout the course of Ben Stokes' career as captain for England, but you just feel now that things are left in an extremely chaotic position.

6:31We've spoken about it in the commentary box, who is England's next Test match captain? And not one of us can say with any great certainty or great confidence that it should be X or it should be Y. And that's the problem, I think. I think throughout the tenure, there has been as many highs, probably more highs than lows. I mean, when you look at the lows, you think, should they have beaten India, England last year? Should they have won the Ashes here? Were they a chance of winning the Ashes in Australia? Those are the three you talk about that everyone really talks about and judges England on more often than not.

7:11Should they have beaten New Zealand here? That's another question. Yeah? Yeah, possibly. but I think the writing was on the wall after the Lord's incident, wasn't it, for the sort of the backlash that's coming now. So if you're judging it purely on those three big series that you think you should be winning, you'd say it's a failure but in between those there were some brilliant moments and almost people started, for the first 18 months to two years, the English public started to fall in love with England Test side again because of the way they played but they were winning. and has that now lost its way a little bit?

7:49I mean, I'll come to you, Butch. Has it looked to you like it's completely lost its way and I wouldn't say rudderless, but where do they go from here? I think without Ben, it's a very difficult thing to continue. The other thing you mentioned there was for the first two years, for the last two years, it's been a little bit roping as they've tried to sort of finesse the idea of this front foot style of cricket. What's actually let them down? hasn't been the skill to be able to do these things. It's been the thinking behind when is the right time to push and when is the right time to sit in. And that's still a massive problem.

8:26And I think with Ben going, that problem is only exacerbated because if you have a leader who you would look at and just have complete confidence in, you know what it's like where we sit in the commentary box, you see things in a much more 360-degree way, you've got no skin in the game. so a leader needs to be somebody that even if there are a couple of blokes in the dressing who thinks you know what i'm not entirely sure about this but because it's him telling me i'm going to throw everything into it then you have a chance of being right more often than wrong and i think that the situation that they are going to find themselves in now they don't know who the leader is going to be but whoever that person is is not going to be ben Stokes.

9:08You know, that charisma, that ability to kind of drag people along with him, it won't be there for whoever it is because I can't think of a single character. So that is going to be the difficulty. I was just thinking about what both of you said. Yes, there has been great highs, there have been lows, big series have been lows, whether it's a draw, whether it's a loss, against sides that you expected to be. I expected them to win the Ashes in Australia quite easily. when you come from the two sides. I didn't think that. They were in positions in the first and second test. It was there. Even in the Ashes at home, they were in great positions to win test matches.

9:47Against India, again. But it was their failure not to win those ones that made me think, well, if you're not winning those ones at home, you've got much less chance of doing it away. So when you ask, has he left it better? There's lots of things he's left England better. not just him, McCullum, and Keeb. They're the three components of what was supposed to be a great turnaround. So the mindset, the freeing of the mind and saying, yes, you can actually bat a lot more positively, and you had that start. And they're winning, yes, and then you hit a few roadblocks. And you said the exact right thing in terms of finessing it.

10:26Now they had to then finesse it and get it to really smart, free, brave, fearless. Whereas now it's also got to be smart because you're going to have challenges along the way where you have to absorb pressure and you have to do things slightly differently. That's where I think the more important conversations need to be had. The director of cricket, Rob Key, sets the vision. He then hires the coach and appoints a captain that executes that vision, who suits that. And then he has to be that foil, that challenging kind of perspective and opinion behind that to say, hold on a minute, what are we doing here?

11:00And then the coach and the captain need to find out who has the authority to determine how they make it smart when they do it. So if they were going to finish it as they said they were, the three of them need to sit down, reset and say, OK, now we've freed the mind. This is what we need to do in the next run to do it. And the next captain is not just about who captains. What type of captain do you need? What type of person do you want? What style of cricket do you want to play from here? These are all questions they need to answer. and so that's going to take them a bit of time as everything unravels as well, not just Stokes leaving.

11:35Okay. Can you see another captain? Not right now. I mean, I'm thinking, see, Harry Brooke would be the obvious answer. He's vice captain. There are all kinds of issues around Harry, not least the way that he seems incapable of being able to kind of think in a clear-headed way given the ability that he has as a batsman and who knows? Having that extra responsibility of a captain might make that easier for him because he's batting for other people rather than himself. But we shall wait and see. The other issue there is that he's already captain of the 2020 side. Can't do all three. I don't think anybody can do all three at the moment.

12:11Cannot do all three. The modern way that cricket is structured. England are going up the road to go and play their first T20 international in Durham on Wednesday. It's Monday afternoon now, so it's just not possible. what I was going to do though because we hadn't done it yet was just run through basically what happened today England were 100 100 and change for 4 this morning after the kamikaze efforts of last night first wicket to go was that of Emilio Gay got a Jaffa Nick behind not much he could do about it for 10 Joe Root was then run out brilliance in the field I mean there were two run outs today in the course of the six wickets that fell both of them very very good Henry Nicholls the first one just brilliant sliding falling backwards, knocked the stumps over.

12:55I think it was Jamie Smith's call. And Joe Root, he came, but he just wasn't quick enough. Wasn't quick enough. One stump to aim at. One stump to aim at. Falling, throwing at the same time. So that was the end of Joe Root, who had a rare double failure at Trent Bridge. Not a happy boy as he walked off. Gus Atkinson was the next to go. He faced the most balls for an England batsman over the course of the Test match. Gus Atkinson batting at number eight for 19 before Santner got him in with W. Archer got a good one from Smith. Josh Tung was the second guy to be run out. Mitch Santner with an even better piece of fielding.

13:32Santner had to, the ball was, he's fielding at square leg. The ball goes behind square, so he has to run round to it, run round it onto his left hand, picked it up, and no wonder they call him Slinky with a sort of rubber arm. This rocket came out of his hand and again hit one stump to aim at, knocked him over, and Tung was done for. Smith was the next guy. He played really well, actually. I mean, Jamie Smith had his detractors, had a rough time of it in the ashes, has made a couple of good contributions, kept pretty well standing up to the stumps at times yesterday. A bit of redemption for him, perhaps?

14:03Yeah, I definitely think so. Every wicker keeper has bad games. You know, Jamie Smith has shown enough that he can keep very competently, and keeping is a skill you can definitely improve over and over, do the drills. He's had some time off, he's coming back in. But batting today, I mean, you mentioned Kamikaze. The way Jamie Smith batted today, again, leaves you a question, no? What if they had buckled down a little bit more, changed things around? Could have been really interesting. But you're right on Jamie Smith. I think definitely for the long term, he's a great player to have in your side.

14:35He balances everything out. He's a genuine batter. His keeping will improve. It's very good at the moment. You get even better. And then leaves you in a few moving parts to try and fix as you go along. Yeah, fair enough. and so he finished 60 from 91 and as Kumar says at times made it look pretty straightforward batting out there as the ball got a little bit older. And Shaui Bashear finished up not out for none. Smith picked up Nathan Smith who is named a player of the series for New Zealand picked up two for 64. Folks with three for 52. I think the quote was something like he's the best substitute over in Nottingham since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer not a few in the city ground across the way.

15:17So it came on as a concussion sub. He ended up with six wickets in the test. Santner picked up two. Sears picked up one. And the Kiwis won the test match by 160 runs and won the series two to one. There are going to be a lot of questions, gents, around what happens next with English cricket. Brendan McCullum is speaking to Michael Atherton and Ian Ward and Nasser Usain as we speak. They will grill him, no doubt. But that is pretty much that from us. I think a sense of slight deflation, really. The day could have gone very, very differently. Ben Stokes had his own way, really, in terms of when he decided he was going to retire.

15:57The fact that he opened the batting, the fact that he was out with nothing left to do on the last day, kind of left a bit of a, not a sour taste, but it was just disappointing, wasn't it, for everybody coming to the ground today? It would have been a much more interesting day had England been one or two down and Ben Stokes with an opportunity to come out to bat at some stage. The ground would have been packed. They would have been banging the doors down outside to come in and watch what could possibly be. Could we have a repeat of Headingley? Could it be, it might have got out first ball, but could we have had some Ben Stokes heroics to round out what has been a magnificent career.

16:33When you sit second only to Jacques Callis in a run with 250 plus wickets in test match career, or 250 exactly, and over 7 ,000 runs, you're in the echelon. You are in that group. He was an outstanding all-rounder. And I guess the very fact that you believe that something like that might have been possible gives you a clue as to the type of cricketer that Ben Stokes was. You kind of think, you know, one more miracle, why not? I mean, he's done it enough times. Right, gents, the miracle is that we are done here and we'll be heading back to our respective homes and resting up before whatever throws, whatever comes at us next.

17:12Right now, though, we're going to take you to the best of the reaction from the end of the day's play today.

17:25Ben, a tremendous ovation and something, that kind of support that you've carried around with you for the whole of your England career. Yeah, it's been a nice couple of days in terms of all that. Obviously, it would have been great for things to have ended differently in terms of the result. But, look, I think the way that this Test match had gone had been an incredibly hard-fought game by both teams, being exposed to some pretty tricky conditions in terms of the weather over the first few days and then obviously that contributing to the pitch, playing a little bit differently day by day. but I think that's one of the great things about chess cricket is that every day is different to the one before and the next day is probably going to be different to the one that you played.

18:10Give credit to New Zealand in the way that they operate throughout this game. Especially Daryl and Ratchett have thought the way that they got the team into a position where they were pretty comfortably ahead. It was always going to be difficult for us to be able to chase down that total but look, it's been a game which feels strange to say but ending on a game where you sort of had to go all the way to the end, I wouldn't have it any other way. The only thing that I would change is that we were on the right side of the result. But you can't always have things your way. That would have been the perfect end.

18:44But as I say, the world isn't perfect. And that's the one thing that'll be sad about the result of my last game. Lots of people watching here and on television. They might want me to ask some questions that they might like answered, really. You've decided to retire from international cricket. Why now? I think I explained that in as much detail as I could yesterday. I'll just say that at the end of the day, there might be a few questions. I'm sure a few people have. I'm sure you do and some other people do. But I hope that I can just be respected that at the end of the day, the most important person in making decisions is myself.

19:22I didn't take the decision lightly or rushed into it. I had a number of people who I trust to talk to these things, quite personal things about. And, you know, I tried throughout this whole week to see if I could get myself through and see myself going beyond this week. But it wasn't meant to be. So, look, I'm very happy with everything that I've managed to do over my career. And it is sad that it's no longer going to be something I get to do. You know, there's some things that I will miss. And there's also some things that I'm quite happily be able to say. I don't have to worry about that anymore.

19:55So, yeah, there's quite a lot of emotion, obviously. But, you know, I'm very proud of what I've done and I'm happy that I feel like I've been able to contribute some kind of happiness to fans who come around and show us, you know, support everywhere we go in the world. And it was an unusual day yesterday. I don't think I've been on commentary in the middle of a moment when a cricketer retires. So why in the middle of the day and maybe not either before the match or at the end of the game? Yeah, it was, look, it was a, I told a few, you know, people who I'm close with in the team about my decision night before and they told the team in the morning and then, you know, again, the comms team we've got here along with my management with Michael Lum and Neil Fairbrother, I just sort of looked, said I've got quite a lot to concentrate still over the last two days, so you guys come up with a plan and then we'll just go with it.

20:44And yeah, I mean, I would have to take a wicket after it becomes made public, wouldn't I? But then, you know, I look at the way the last two and a half weeks has unfolded and it's obviously been a bit interesting, we'll say. That's probably the best way to put it, but it's, you know, again I can look back at probably one week and have a bit of a laugh that there was a bit of controversy around my last game for England, but I guess you could relate that to me as a player throughout it. It's like a little bit hit and miss sometimes here and there and obviously with this, you know, something pretty simple ended up being a bit complicated but look, I've thoroughly enjoyed every single time I walked down the field and And I'll look back on fond memories of everything, even if there is a little bit of controversy off the field here and there.

21:27You mentioned those memories. There have been some great ones over 13 years. What particularly stand out for you? I think I look back at some of the things that I've been involved in on the field with not only being able to say that I played with some of the best players that England had ever produced, and I've been able to share some pretty special moments out on the field with those people. and even some of the guys who are starting their careers out. Yes, I know that I've done some decent things on the field, but I look back at some of the moments that I've shared with other people who have achieved some great things out on the field.

22:03I feel lucky that I've seen what Joe Root's been able to do on the cricket field as a player and as a captain, and he's still going. Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Alistair Cook, all these greats of the game, but then also there's other people who I've played against that I've seen do some amazing things out on the field, So I feel incredibly lucky that not only have I been involved in some of the moments that, you know, as a proud Englishman can say, but also what other greats of the game have done. And, yeah, it's been some ride and something I'll always be able to look back on with fond memories.

22:35Great memories, great career, a privilege. Well done. Thanks very much, Ades. Cheers. I wondered how much you had to hold your nerve a little bit as captain yesterday afternoon, because it was quite a chaotic period, wasn't it, with the announcement of retirements. to completely change and a switch in England's batting order. Yeah, it was. And I guess that's probably something we pride ourselves on the most as this group is trying to adapt to situations. You know, the situation looked a little bit different with the new ball when you got most of the guys out on the boundary. But we just thought that was the most important thing that we needed to do.

23:06And obviously to get those four wickets last night was really important. And again, we knew we had a lot of hard work to do this morning. And again, some key moments, you know, where you think of runouts and catches and all that sort of thing. but it was obviously really pleasing to come here and get the job done today. Enjoyed watching you and your team play. Congratulations. I've got Stokesy, just on behalf of the New Zealand cricket team mate, just want to congratulate you on an amazing career. Obviously, once in a generation player to play against you for all these years. Obviously, we had some fierce battles throughout our time, certainly your career.

23:43and just on behalf of all of us, just want to congratulate you on a fantastic career, mate. Enjoy your retirement. Nasser and I are joined by Brendan McCullum. Classy Kiwis, eh? Were those words at the end? You sound surprised. A little bit, yeah. Ah, look, he's a class act, Tom Latham, and as are all of that New Zealand side, I thought, you know, they obviously, they play the game in the right spirit, but they're also fantastic at it. They were too good for us in this Test match and ultimately they deserve to win. Can I ask you about something, or rather the manner, of what Joffre Archer said to Michael Afton there when asked about a dressing room without Ben Stokes.

24:18He seemed genuinely quite moved by the fact that he would not be there again. Is that the case in the entire dressing room? Is that the case with you? The partnership has been broken. Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think Stokes has had such an impact on so many people, not just since he's been captain, also throughout his career. He's a leader of men. People follow him. and he's made such a significant impact in the last four years on so many people, not just in the dressing room now, but those that have played under him over the last four years as well. So he is going to be missed. Obviously, we've been speaking for a couple of weeks, which I won't go into those conversations, but when he confirmed to me yesterday that he was going to retire, firstly, I tried to talk him down, and it became pretty obvious that he had made his decision and he was at peace with it.

25:09And from that point of view, I guess your emotion then leads on to just a bit of sadness, really, because you have been on this journey together for four years. And it's been a real thrill. I feel very privileged that I've been able to work intimately with Stokesy throughout their time and consider him a friend, a good friend. And I wish, from his point of view, I hope the next chapter is as great as the last. So you did try and talk him out of it because you were worried at him. and in a press conference you used that word worried I think about eight times. Yeah, look, again, the private conversations, I don't want to go into those respectfully, but Stokes had made his decision and he's hard to turn around when he makes a decision.