Ben Stokes Exclusive: How Can England Rebuild in 2026?

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1:38Welcome to Untapped. Today we have with us in person, England cricketing legend and captain Ben Stokes. Ben, thanks so much for coming in. No worries, thanks. Don't compliment me too much. You'll get me rosy red cheeks out. Would you say that you've always had a winning mentality? It's changed a lot over the years, my views towards a lot of things around playing at the highest level. But one thing that's always been a concern is how hard I work, my work ethic towards my job. it's it's just a given that it's not just me or the guys that I play with you know it's just professional athletes are just different you know it's just like a different mindset especially towards doing what we're required to do out on the field when it comes to the training but I also I love the saying it's like if you're always seeking perfection you're only ever going to let yourself down which for me is a great saying because you know we always want to go out there and do as well as we possibly can.

2:46Put understanding we are human, we are up against other people who are very high skilled and there's so many things that are constantly uncontrollable and that's where that saying I love because I find it really really keeps me level not only with my personal performances but also as a captain where I've got to look after a whole team. It really gives me an understanding and understands everyone else when they can have bad days as well. You must have had times in your career that couldn't have gone better. What would you say was the highest point of your professional cricketing career? I think there's been some amazing moments that I've been fortunate enough to be a part of.

3:33Certain moments, particularly as an individual, where I've done some things, but the great thing about being in the team sport is that you know you can always have a moment you know by yourself but you know it's not just you you know there's like 10 other people there who have allowed you to be in that situation where you've been able to go out there and you know you sort of be the center of stage if that makes sense you know world cup 2019 at lords Ashes, Headingley but another one that might probably slip under the radar actually was when we won the T20 World Cup in Australia two, three years ago that one was sort of like felt a little different because of I'd been in a World Cup final before in the T20 format and it didn't go as well as Australia did thinking back to when Carlos hit me out of the ground four times in the last over So, yeah, a little bit.

4:36But look, cricket, you have more bad days than good, but really enjoy the good days. How do you deal with those moments that aren't going your way? For whatever reason, I was just taken to golf there, when Rory at the Masters recently missing that forefoot putt. And I just felt crushed for him, right? and he's got to go into a shoot-off against Rose. How do you handle pressure in that way when you know that millions of people are dialed into that precise moment? How do you keep yourself in the game and how do you play the way you play under pressure? I think actually going into golf there is probably a good way to compare it.

5:25If you think like I was the same as you, I was just desperate for Rory to win that. I've never wanted someone to win something so bad I hope he just goes on the absolute rampage now now he's sort of got that major off his back but if you think about golf individual sports it's you against you and I know there are other people who are trying to get there at the end of the fourth day and get the trophy but for example when Rory's over as put it's him he's got to get that ball in the hole whereas in cricket and team it's like when I'm at the end of my mark with the ball or if I've got the bat in my hand like it's me as you mate like that's where I think the sport of cricket and rugby and where you got team against team really helps those pressure situations because you can you know where you are in the game but it's like well no I'm I'm against you here you and that's how I like try and envision it it's like um this battle right now is me against you and i'm gonna i'm gonna win it doesn't always happen that way but that's where going up against someone else like you know in the moment physically can actually sort of take you away from those massive pressure moments where the game is on the line um because you always have the scoreboard up in the corner i view the scoreboard and cricket as my friend because i sort of know where i am in the game especially in those moments where it's getting to the end of it, especially if we're chasing or bowling at the end, whatever it may be.

6:57But it's a lot easier to sort of calm those nerves down because it's, yeah, I just look at the sights against you here. Great golfers, Rory McIlroy being a good example with what happened to him at the Open against Brian DeChambeau. Well, he lost that one, but then kind of was faced with a similar situation at the Masters, which he was able to win, thankfully. Great golfers say that they're able to forget a bad shot, you know, and not allow it to affect them in ways that, you know, it might affect somebody like me playing golf, you know, like a bad shot might lead to a bad day. Because you just don't have that experience.

7:37Would you say that that is something that you're able to do? You know, if you if you make an unprecedented error, or an unforced error, or a mistake in a high pressure situation are you able to just press reset and you know see the next ball as a totally new thing yeah I think cricket's probably one of the easiest sports to do that especially in the moment if you play a bad shot and you don't get out no one remembers the bad shot you know what I mean so it's just like I'm still here move on to the next one see what happens I think yeah in golf I play golf loads and like if I'm playing badly and I've like got say I'm hitting it left I'm hitting it right every shot I'm thinking please don't go left please don't go left please don't go right please don't go right because I don't have the control over a golf club or a golf ball like I do with a cricket but you know so it's just way easier for me to like play a bad shot or make an error and judgment on something but if I'm not out that's why am I worried about it I suppose as a bowler as well you only need those you know the the excellent balls are the ones that make the difference the rest of them you know don't really play a part in in in the result per se like it's you know when roger federer famously did his um harvard speech where he said that you know over the course of his career he's won just ever so slightly more than 50 of his points you know yet he's considered to be the greatest player of all time but you know he could have easily uh been under that 50 mark and been lower down the ranks so the margin for error was so slight and he was saying that he was also able to put down bad shots and just forget about it and to not give up at that level is incredible, I'm sure you've had many moments like that Yeah, I think if you give up before something's done you might as well just declare the game done and then there you go as soon as you think you're out, you're gone, there's no point continuing, genuinely I know no one's ever going to just stop, but I'm sure that people are so far behind in game and something that they're just waiting for it to happen.

9:51And does that happen to you? So, you know, when you are behind and, you know, the probability of winning that test or that day is so slight. Are you ever just waiting for that, you know, day to be over or are you always fighting to pull it back? there's always a point in a game where if you lose convincingly, that there is like, you're eight down and you need 400 to win. You're like, this is only one way. But there's other games where like, say if you're batting last or you need to bowl a team out for a small target, nah, we're going to win this. Even if we're three down, four down, five, whatever it is, until literally there is no hope.

10:34Where in cricket it's very obvious when there is no hope at certain points. you're not like giving up you're not just like putting your back down and kicking your stumps over and going there you go you're still obviously going out there to do something like even with bowling like sometimes you've needed teams needed 20 runs to win and you have to go out there and bowl and they've got 10 wickets you're like well we're going to lose this game but if you bowl you still run up and bowl flat out you know you're not giving up even though it's very likely that the other team is going to win Do you think confidence in sport can ever be a problem?

11:05Like you know and where is the line between confidence and delusion massive huge issue like sometimes confidence just get beaten out of players because of what people say about them like it's I find it like that's been such a big part of what me and Baz and Rob Key and the coaches have tried to do over the last two and a half years with the people we've had in the dressing room is like beat the negative thought processes out of them which is we feel a product of as we said at the start of this the general like I don't know how people speak about sport in Britain it's just so negative like we just love picking up on the negative things but then it's alright because they do say like I hope they prove me wrong at the end like I said you know it's just like let's just focus on all that kind of stuff and And yeah, like it's just, that was one thing about becoming captain was I found like this is just such like a negative mindset towards this.

12:16So we just felt like we had to do such a big job to try and change that all around. And just almost tell the lab, do you know how good you are? You all are, like you're amazing. Like you guys are playing for England, you're at the top of your sport. Like you're not as rubbish as what you may think you are. You're really, really good. Can you take us into those early conversations about what Baz Ball meant, you know, more than just the strategy? Yeah. Well, Baz Ball, God, it's like a... I can't even remember when it came up, but it was something that... I don't know. I'd love to know the journalists who labelled it Baz Ball, because I generally can't remember.

12:53But yeah, that was a name born out of the media. We can't avoid it now, so we're just sort of like, okay, that's what it's been called for some reason. But yeah, there was thought process to the chaos is what we call it initially. But there was such a shift that we both felt needed to happen when we took over. We addressed the situation that we had on our hands and we said, right, well, what do we want to do? and how do we need to, how do we both think we need to give the chance and give the confidence to the lads who we pick to feel confident to go out there and do this? Because there's a lot of times where it's a lot easier for people who are entrusted with being the leaders and in leadership to tell or explain things to people to go out there and do it.

13:54But then what happens a lot is you give people freedom and then it doesn't go well for them. And then you pull them up on something, but then they're going, well, you told us that we were able to do this. So we had this plan, we had this idea of how we wanted to speak, how we wanted to go out there and play. And the whole idea of it was we need to free everyone up. We need to let all this weight off the shoulders that everyone is carrying, undoubtedly. I was carrying it as well because it was being a part of a tough time in English cricket. And that was it, really. It was like, we need to give this group just that confidence to go out there and just be like, look, we are going to fail.

14:36Inevitable that we're going to fail at some point. Someone might do really well, someone might do really poorly, but at the end of the day, when we finish the day, we want to be known as, this is how we're going to take the game on right now. And how we are going to go and take this game on is giving guys absolute freedom to go out there and really, really express themselves, probably beyond what they ever thought they would be able to do in an England shirt. That's purely because that's what we thought needed to happen. It could have gone completely wrong. It could have gone tits up. The start we had was honestly, I look back and I'm just like, sheesh, that was really good.

15:10I think we won six of our first seven games in the summer. Played this incredible cricket. We had some incredible performances. And we were winning games with this way of playing cricket, and test cricket especially, that was just the complete opposite to what everyone assumed English cricket was played like. just aggressive to start with yeah like we were very careful around how we spoke the language we used like we weren't just saying it for the sake of saying it like it was really really precise language and it's changed over the years like we're three years down the line now it's progressed you know but back then it was just real simple it was just like just go create some chaos see what happens you know because and everyone was like oh and I just wanted people to have a smile on their face when they're playing you know they've got three lines in their chest they're playing for England it's the best time it's like the best thing that you could ever hope for as a kid when you were trying to make it out as a professional cricketer it's to walk out and represent your country and now you're here just go out and just have the best time of your life you know on the field socially we're going to do stuff together we're going to you know just create these memories that we might never have again it might be it's all taking office next year who knows what's going to happen but while you're playing under me while you're playing under Baz you're going to remember like this for more than the pressures of international cricket like let's just go have some fun and and see where it takes us and yeah it was just it was just chaos it was awesome it was such a good first summer and something that we desperately needed as a team and now we find ourselves here where we've yeah we've done pretty well but we we want to kick it on because we know we're a seriously good team but yeah we want to we want to take ourselves to new heights which right now we've keep all the things that we know work really really really well for us but progress it on even further but back then honestly Spencer it was just go and create some chaos see what happens, that was literally it

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19:22do you doubt yourself in the moment ever so are you or are you always confident in your ability to win it is like when you are when you are behind the game so much and like you can look at a game of cricket especially and sort of go right well this team is massively in favor of winning this game but if you flip it around you actually go well they're actually if i'm out there i flip around and i go well you're the team under the pressure now because you are the team on top here you are everyone's looking at this game going you're going to win this but when i'm still actively involved in the game i try and flip that round and go well no you're under pressure because you've got to win this game you know and then same again if i'm actively involved in a game where we should win in the moment, I can then flip that around and go, well, this game isn't done yet because funnier things have happened.

20:17So I think over the years, being in quite a few of those situations have helped me be able to calculate the game from both directions of it, either being massively behind or being massively in front. Have you ever bottled it? I think bottled it is maybe... it's like, you know, if it doesn't go well, it's such a good phrase and easy phrase to say, oh, I say it as well, against PR, you've bottled it. But again, when you're up against someone else, it's like skill against skill.

20:51Simply saying, 2016, bottled the World Cup. More technically speaking, just my execution on that given moment just was nowhere near good enough. But yeah, give me that time again and I'll try and run up and do the same thing, which was the only thing that let me down that night was the execution of what I wanted to deliver with my skill. What would you say was your lowest point in cricket? Probably that actually. 2016, how old was I? Five, nine, nine years ago. So 23, 24. That week to two weeks after that final was... Yeah, it was tough coming back home. but I had one more two ways to go was either let it just completely weigh me down and let it hang around on my shoulders or go away and work harder and let it go and use it as I don't know like a stepping stone to move forward and that's what I decided to do didn't let it hang over me or you know stay with me I just worked away and started working harder and just tried to get better and better Do you feel generally supported by the British public or are they quite or can they be quite a fickle bunch you know things don't go your way and don't go the team's way what is the general response ordinarily you know in the days that follow from the great British public yeah look I mean as fans go we've got awesome fans you know we've got the Barmy Army they are just absolutely epic wherever we go in the world they're there cheering you know supporting us through thick and thin they are absolutely awesome sometimes the frustrating thing I think especially towards sport in England is just the how much focus there is on negative stuff either before anything's happened there's always this like oh well that's not going to go well is it it's like it's not happening for like a month like and we're already thinking it's going to be the end of the world you know what I mean there's just this constant focus on negative, negative, negative that I don't know how it changes, but 90 % of the time we have awesome support.

23:0710 % of the time I think we just sort of, you know, country loves to moan and loves to hate. People actually say, you know, a great cop-out for it is, oh, but I hope they prove me wrong. So, well, you just sort of back and you're like, you're just, what? Yeah, that's a good way to sum it up, I think. Would you say that you're an emotional person? Do you know, more so if I feel my team or any of my players are getting bombarded, say what you want about me, I really couldn't care less. But yeah, I've just got to, I don't know what it is, protective little blanket around the lads. Is that the father figure in you?

23:50Maybe, I guess, yeah. Where were you when you received the call to Captain England? There was a lot of um and ah in about that when it came about because Joe Root, who was a captain before me, he's a very, very close friend of mine. I was the vice captain for 90 % of his captaincy role. Did an unbelievable job. had to lead the team through COVID, which was honestly being part of that and seeing what he had to do. No one's got any clue about how he managed to hold that team together and hold himself together, but still go out there and perform. He just did an incredible job that so many people wouldn't see, the behind-the-scenes kind of stuff.

24:41Just incredible. No wonder why everything just got too much for him and it weighed down on him. It affected him off the field. I remember when he got the call to let me know that he was stepping down um it was like the conversation started off you know that like uh like but then as he said it and then it was just like oh you could feel this like sense of relief just come come away from him and i'd only just returned back to playing so there was this like will he won't he will he won't he and like um i'd given it a few days spoke to claire and And I just picked the phone up to Rob Key at the time and just said, I said, look, if you want to give me it, I'm ready.

25:23And he was like, all right, okay. So before it actually got officially announced, I kind of knew for a week that I was England captain. We were just having to wait to sort of deliver it out on the news and all that kind of stuff. So I obviously rang Rooty to say that I'm taking it up. And yeah, so if anything, I was just like reassuring Rob that if he was thinking about me to do it and he was a bit worried that I wouldn't do it, just let him know, no, I'm ready for it. So if you want to offer it to me, I'll take it. Was that one of the proudest moments of your career? I mean, obviously, like, this sounds, you know, captaining England is just honestly, like, I wake up every day and I'm blessed.

26:08I'm walking out there doing a job, which I have done for such a long time now, when I was a kid, you know, I was playing in the garden or down the park with my mates. Now it's my job. Now I get to captain England. It's absolutely awesome. But yeah, it was different because I didn't get a phone call to say, will you do it? It was almost like, I need to let Keyesie know that I will do it if he wants me to do it. So it was like... Normally England captains would go down to Lourdes and get put in a suit and get announced in the big long room. And I just said to Keyes, I said, I ain't doing that. So put me in a track suit, I'm doing it at Durham.

26:46I'm not traveling down to London to have a photo. Just because it's a three and a half hour journey on the train, whereas Durham cricket is 20 minutes in the car and I prefer wearing tracksuit and suit. So I was like, we're going to do it. I'll do it my way. I wasn't sure what to wear, to be honest, interviewing you today. So I wore kind of like something in between, you know, just playing it safe. Black on black, it's easy, isn't it? I was talking to my dad this morning, who's a massive fan of yours. He says hello, by the way. And he was, he looked, because I was FaceTiming him from the cab on the way here.

27:20And he said, are you not going to the Lords today? And I said, yeah, I am. And he said, you need a collar. I was like, I don't think Ben will be wearing a collar. And he called us a pair of rule breakers. Yeah. So that's us. Yeah. So that's the riffraff. Let's talk about your injury. You hurt yourself in December. You tore your hamstring. Did any part of you think that that could be career ending? No. At the time. so it was the second hamstring tear I'd done in less than a year and at the time it felt like a little grade one thing because I remember the first time I did it it was the first hamstring tear like that was like someone had shot me like I was like down on the floor I was out like proper carry on like carried off the field like I was like oh god this is awful and that was like a decent tear and then this one in December like I felt it but I was like I walked off the field I was like oh I knew I'd done something but I was like I'll probably be a little grade one or something like that but then the results came back it was worse than the first one and I was like oh god and then I was like god I've been told I have to have surgery and then I remember speaking to the doctor on the phone about just saying like this one's worse but why does it feel like it's nowhere near as bad pain wise in the first one he was like well like the first one you would have torn your hamstring and you know you would have like gone through some nerves so like if you lose 30 % of your nerves or whatever it was you know 30 % less pain and I was like oh that's why you're a doctor like it makes complete sense um but yeah it's like I had to have surgery on this one because the second time I'd done it gives you surgery allows you to have like a lesser chance of doing it again um and I had a really big block of time to be able to do a proper hamstring rehab program you know the first time I did it I was back playing in nine weeks which for the hamstring tear that I had was yeah pretty pretty remarkable but we had to do the rehab in a completely different way that you know got me back into position to be safe to play so we had to like miss loads of bits out to get me ready in nine weeks, which was always going to be a push, but I managed to do it.

29:34But this time around was like, we need to do this properly, like three and a half months, four months of rehab because we've got time. So it was a little bit longer, a little bit more boring, but we've done it properly this time. And I can say over since January, January the 5th was a surgery. I've just done everything that I possibly can to give myself the best chance of not doing it again. In terms of being a top-tier cricketer, what does the training look like? So can you take me through a kind of routine? How do you stay in the kind of shape that you're in? Is there a lot of mobility stretching?

30:16Is there lots of weightlifting? Do you run? How do you stay in peak physical condition and how important is it to be in that condition? Yeah, look, I think there's so many different professional sports and all these different professional sports require different training methods, require different modes of movement, whatever it may be. The way that we train will be completely different to rugby, football, tennis, all that kind of stuff because it's just all different movements. Yes, there is some similarity between them, but it is completely different to when we have to come to execute our skills.

30:52you know like cricket gets a a rep of being oh you just stand in the field all day like you don't have to be fit to do that like you give the someone who's never played cricket like the fittest bloke in the world if you tell him to go stand in the field and bowl 15-20 overs he won't be able to move the next day but we've just accustomed our bodies to be able to do that because of the the training that we do not only with our skill work but also in the gym you know like for me now massively my gym work is about you know all the bits that need to be strong or certain movements or certain you know areas of my body that has extensive load throughout the day we need to keep on top of that so you know there's a lot of like hamstring work a lot of quad work half work like isometric stuff in terms of load because you know I weigh 86 kilograms every time I bowl the ball that's like eight times my body weight goes through the knee, through my quad, my hamstring.

31:52So, you know, you do that 20 overs a day. It's a lot of load. Eight times the load? Yeah, eight times your body weight goes through your front leg when you bowl. When you bowl, not when I bowl. Well, no, like, yeah. Yeah. Anyone, that's what it's like. Every time you, like, land on that front foot, you know, six times. Six balls is an over. So, yeah, eight times every ball. You're a fast medium bowler, but you bowl at 90 plus miles an hour. I used to bowl at 90 when I was a bit younger. So that would have been fast bowling? Yeah. Okay, good. I was doing my research on you and it was kind of like, Ben Stokes, fast, medium bowler.

32:29And then in the second paragraph, it was like 92 miles. I was like, that's surely just a fast bowler. So how they do it? So there's medium, fast and fast, medium. Whereas if you're fast, medium, that means you're like generally higher up. whereas I would now say I'm medium fast so I'm a medium every now and again I'll be able to crank it up to fast yeah I had I used to be quite pally with a few lads that would play kind of county cricket and some played for England and I played in a charity match once and I was batting I think it might have even been do you know Rory Hamilton Brown? that lot we played a game and honestly one of his pals was a fast bowler you couldn't even see the ball it literally just blows the stumps out it's kind of like you're not even aware it's incredible would you call yourself one of the better bowlers in English cricket history?

33:27no by no stretch of the imagination but I love being an all-rounder I get to do both so if on one day the batting might not go well I know I've got my bowling to then try and help the team out vice versa, bowling might not go well oh well I've got the baton to try and help the team out here but going back to what you said before like totally on TV what you know you see like the speedometer come down and like you know guys bowling like 85-86 mile an hour but because of the angle that's actually the angle where the ball doesn't look like it's fast what people need to do is go and stand side on to a game of watching like we got Mark Wood, Joffre Archer you know they bowl at 95 mile an hour and then you look side on and then you look at where the slipcord and the keeper is, they're like 30 yards further back from when they let the ball go.

34:16It's absolutely rapid. You see a few things on social media, particularly boxes, where someone calls them out and they're like, oh, come on then. Sometimes there's this thing like, these people who are like, oh, you're crap. You're like, come and have a net with us then. Like, come down to wherever we are, you get the pads on and I'll get Joffre and Woody and I'll get them to bowl at you. you honestly can't even see it it's rapid mate it's astounding it's rapid and you kind of can't quite understand how it's gone through you because you're stood in front of the wicket and you think if anything it would be an LBW and it's not it just smashes the wicket out and it's like I'm stood in front of it it's like coming out of someone's hand 90 mile an hour it's then also going to hit the wicket and then it moves off the wicket and we've got 0.2 of a second to react to all of that I mean by the time the ball gets down to us it's like dropped down to 86.

35:13So yeah, it is tough. But yeah, I love someone who's like, come get your pads on, get your helmet on. You go stand down there and I'll get Joffre to bowl as fast as he can at you and then see who's crap. We'll see if we can arrange that, by the way. So we'll put some feelers out. Anyone who thinks that these lads are crap at cricket, you write to the show, right? Drop us a message. We've got a WhatsApp number. It's in the show notes. And we'll get you down to some nets. we take no responsibility for any injuries does that kind of stuff bother you? people's negative comments would you say you've got a bit of a steel trap of a mind or water off a duck's back, all that stuff?

35:49yeah I can see if you are going to expose yourself to it you do need to be able to manage your emotions and feeling towards that kind of stuff so I actually some people say I don't read that I don't read any of it why do you keep talking about it then? But I read it. I see it because I've got to do so much media. Before a series, before a game, you go and do press conferences. I actually like to see what's being said and what's going on because then I sort of feel like I'm prepared for something that could be thrown at me. Because if they're writing about it pre, then I'm probably going to get asked about it.

36:31So I like to sort of see what's going on in the world, especially in cricket, around the news and media and the journalism and stuff, just because I feel like it gives me a slight, like be prepared for the press conferences that I have to do. When did you realise that you had kind of immense talent for cricket? And, you know, I know that you were playing at a very high level when you were 19. But was it always your dream to be a cricketer? I suppose it stems back to childhood. I come from a very, very sporty family. My dad was a professional rugby league player. um many people know but I'd spent the first 12 years of my life in New Zealand um yeah when my dad was a professional player and then he had to retire early actually because of a broken neck um which then led him down the the coaching route um my mum was very sporty she played indoor cricket um so I was just around sport um you know since since I could remember and rugby and cricket were my two sports growing up.

37:35You know, they're two major sports in New Zealand, so it's very hard to avoid those if you're into sport. But I guess it wasn't really until I moved to England where I think I really started to think I could maybe give this a go at making a career out of either or. Rugby and cricket were sort of going really well. I was at the same level at both. and I remember I actually injured myself at school playing rugby when I might have been told by my dad not to play because I'd just been selected in my first underage England team for cricket. And one of my dad's players was actually our PE coach at the time and I remember when I hurt my knee, he was called Mr Woodcock, he absolutely shit himself when he realised I'd hurt myself because he knew that I wasn't meant to be playing rugby.

38:30So I missed out on that training camp at under-15s. And he basically told me then, now you need to choose what you want to do. You can't keep doing both. And yeah, I was just enjoying my cricket way more then. So that's when rugby got knocked on the head and the pursuit to become a professional cricketer started. When your father broke his neck, where were you? No, I was a very, very, very small little infant. Is that why he was looking to protect you from that sport or he just realized that you had a brighter future in cricket? I guess maybe actually, you know, like his career ended early. So I guess he could have been a reason as to why he said, you need to make a decision because he didn't want to potentially spoil the opportunity of both, if that makes sense.

39:24Where would you say that your kind of natural grit and determination comes from? Is it just your competitive spirit from within a sporting family? Or were there any incidents in your childhood that you think made you a better athlete? Again, I always look back at when I was very young. I didn't know at the time, but because my dad took me to training pretty much all the time with him, I was around professional athletes all the time. so I guess subconsciously I was just taken in all this like atmosphere of a changing room of professional rugby players and that's potentially rubbed off on me without me realizing especially at that age but now sitting here at 33 nearly 34 the way that I look back on that is that it must have had some kind of effect on me of constantly being in that environment from such young age of being around and in dressing rooms of professional athletes who you know if they do poorly if they do well actually is a big thing um it's not you know simply where you know like a club level let's say a non-professional level where you know obviously everyone wants to do well but you sort of you finish your game and then you know you wait until next week again whereas being in a dressing room where what happens in that specific day really matters to a lot of people.

40:48Maybe that did have some kind of influence on me growing up. Thanks, bro. Sweet. Easy. That was good, Dad. Thanks so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you want to hear more incredible conversations with extraordinary people like Ben Stokes, then please subscribe, follow and review the show wherever you're listening or watching. Your support is very important to us. Thanks again, and we'll catch you next week right here on Untapped.

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