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Ben Stokes walked out to uproarious applause and trudged off to pindrop silence. In between, he scored 15 runs before being bowled by a delivery from Zak Foulkes that jagged in wickedly, and left with an accusatory glare at the pitch. From start to finish, it was vintage late-era Stokes.
By raising hopes, then dashing them, all in the space of 55 minutes, England’s captain confirmed the world he now inhabits – one in which the level of expectation is as unreasonable as the level of disappointment.
The trouble is that Stokes the bowler keeps rising to the challenge, while Stokes the batsman is invariably falling short. As for Stokes the captain, no one can say for sure, which only adds to the drama.
On Friday, he had dragged England back into this seesawing contest with a trademark eight-over spell that yielded three wickets for 13 runs and was central to New Zealand’s collapse from 317 without loss to 438 all out. He finished with four for 70, his side’s best figures, leaving him with more Test wickets (40) since the start of 2025 than any of his team-mates bar Josh Tongue. A career haul of 250 moved him up to ninth on England’s all-time list. At the age of 35, his bowling seems on an upward curve.
But Saturday morning demanded a different skillset, not least because he emerged in a crisis, having seen his team’s imposing overnight 223 for two turn into a perilous 234 for five by the unflagging accuracy of Nathan Smith and Will O’Rourke, and with the Trent Bridge pitch beginning to misbehave.
During his post-Rex Rooms exile, Stokes had made a free-flowing 95 for Durham in a County Championship Division Two game at Chester-le-Street, advancing at Northamptonshire’s opening bowlers as if they were trundlers and rescuing his side from 30 for three. It was an innings, he said before this Test, that reminded him to ‘simplify things’.
Ben Stokes is bowled by a nip-backer from Zak Foulkes for just 15
Stokes gave the Trent Bridge pitch an accusatory glance after being dismissed
He added: ‘I just cleared my mind of everything and made it pretty simple. Just go out there and react to the ball. I was thinking about too much before the ball actually came down, and then I wasn’t thinking about what you need to do when you’re batting, which is watch the ball, and score off it. And if you can’t, try not to get out to it. It’s a pretty simple game, if you think about it.’
But the New Zealand attack is not Northamptonshire. During the course of his 33-ball stay, he was dropped by a diving Devon Conway in the gully on one, and almost caught by Conway in the same position on five – both off squirty thick-edged drives.
By the time Foulkes, proving a useful concussion substitute for Blair Tickner, undid Stokes with sideways movement, he had taken his record in his last eight Test innings to 51 runs at 6.38. The cruel interpretation is that England’s lower order now starts at No 7.
Despite this alarming drop-off, the demise of Stokes elicited the sort of hushed reaction more normally associated with, say, the wicket of Virat Kohli at Mumbai’s Wankhede, the crowd unwilling or unable to compute what they have just seen.
Stokes will have one more chance in Nottingham to prove to everyone that his problem really has been overthinking, not something more serious. One more chance to help preserve England’s 14-year unbeaten home record in series of at least three Tests. One more chance to ensure these past few weeks are not remembered solely for his act of self-sabotage in a Chelsea nightclub. Even in the moments of stunned silence, Stokes remains England’s most talked-about cricketer.
