Ben Stokes retires. As always, reason can wait

It's Stokes time. It's emotions time. It's 'let's all go to the well', one last time.

The crowd is clapping Ben Stokes, and he hasn’t taken a wicket in ages. His hands are on his hips, and he looks spent. He’s bowling one of those endless spells that he doesn’t need to. But he wants it. On Day 3, he didn’t bowl early enough as New Zealand got away. So he’s in full flagellating mode.

But the crowd is not cheering this spell. The news has passed around the stadium, whispers from social media and wireless radios - Ben Stokes is retiring. It was announced by SKY while Gus Atkinson was in the middle of the previous over. The press got the news about seven minutes before. Setting off a panic, phone calls, hushed conversations and a flurry of typing.

Now Stokes stands at the top of his mark, and the crowd start to cheer his run up.

New Zealand are so far ahead that earlier in the day, Joe Root had to regularly orchestrate the crowd noise. Showing them when and how to clap, just to create some energy while Daryl Mitchell blocked and bunted. Mitchell actually backed away, to try and stop it, but Root wanted more.

Now, there is no need, Stokes is striding in, and like a band about to play a huge rock set, there is one chord hanging in the air, and the crowd rise and rise. By the time he comes in, they are almost expectant.

They have seen this before. Stokes, at any moment, is worth watching. But he must have guessed why they are making their noise. Earlier in the day, he had already told his team-mates.

Jacob Bethell is in the change-room, with the biggest look of shock on his face. There have been rumours, innuendo and scuttlebutt about the great man leaving. But with someone like Stokes, there is knowing it could happen, and then seeing it actually occur. Bethell was seven-years-old when Stokes made his debut, he only knows the English team with the allrounder in it. He had only just turned ten when Stokes made his first Test hundred at Perth. When 2019 came around, he was 15. His hero, idol and captain is quitting, and you can see the stunned expression on his face.

Jacob Bethell is us all.

When Stokes left the field, it felt like the crowd was quietly clapping. It was reverence. Like a state funeral procession was passing. It wasn’t very Ben Stokes.

For everything, he has been very rock ‘n roll. A live guitar solo where you can hear the crowd cheering in the background. It has been dirty, bluesy, grunge and punk. His Marshall amps have been at 11 the entire time.

There is a lot of Stokes legacy. But most of it has been loud. Ear bleeding.

When he was dismissed in this Test the first time, it was from a shooter out of the footmarks. As he walked off, I yelled in the press box, ‘Look at the pitch.’ And then he turned and looked at the fucken pitch. He was a warrior and performer rolled into one.

So when the crowd is cheering him just for doing the thing he has done more than 100 times already today, you can’t help but feel something might happen. Zak Foulkes is a No.9, but he can hold a bat. He opened in his first-class debut, and he’s been dead-batting England for an hour with his forward press and soft hands. He looks like a batter.

But the issue for young Foulkes, is before he was facing Stokes on his own. Many people have tamed that. But Stokes with all of England at his back is different. And so, his first ball after retirement, the talisman waddles in with his broken knees to deliver a dead ordinary ball outside off.

Foulkes plays a shot, perhaps his first of the day, a wild back foot punch. And this normal safe delivery suddenly gathers the Stokes English fan energy and does enough to find the edge, and also carry to slip.

How does he always do this?

When New Zealand are bowled out, Stokes runs from the field. Some of us have already joked he will open the batting. Now it’s clear something is going on. He puts his pads on in the balcony. As always, he is like a model who knows where his light is.

Very few times have you ever seen a player put on pads with such intent. His walk out has nine shadow shots, all of them are huge. He’s hit four boundaries and not faced a ball.

Ben Duckett gives him strike in the first over. And from the warm up, it’s pretty clear he’s going to attack. But how much? Is this T20 careful Stokes, or will he be the light-your-arse-on-fire and swing, from the start of Bazball?

First ball he moves down the pitch and slog slaps a ball to mid-off. The sound off the bat is about as loud as you ever hear. It’s so loud, it tells you it’s not just him on fire, but the entire battalion too.

Soon he is trying to reverse scoop Nathan Smith. New Zealand freak out almost straight away, putting out deep third, and Stokes steals a single from their movements.

Maybe he is playing a reverse Malachi, trying to get the Blackcaps to freak out, and then steal ones.

Will O’Rourke’s first ball is on a length outside offstump, and Stokes hammers it back to him. It takes the Kiwi’s finger off, rebounds to mid-off, and is almost caught by a jumping Mitch Santner. Ben Stokes has invented pinball cricket in his last game.

O’Rourke has to go off, and because Ben Sears is injured too, New Zealand are suddenly down to three bowlers. Stokes wants to make it two, so he charges Zak Foulkes and puts him in the members stand.

For a moment, I remember what it was like when Stokes won at Headingley in 2019. The crowd and him came together to forge this incredible moment. This is not quite that. But Stokes is trying to will it into existence.

New Zealand are completely frazzled. Long-on and long-off are back, deep third goes out again, Tom Blundell asks for the helmet so he can come up to the stumps. Usually you decalre a mile ahead and put the pressure on, the Blackcaps are suddenly taken back to the last time they bowled at Trent Bridge.

Daryl Mitchell is trying to change the field while Stokes isn’t looking, but Kyle Jamesion (the sub) is talking to someone. That ball leaps off an invisible trampoline and gets an edge straight over Mitchell’s head.

When the ball is on the stumps it feels like he wants to block or rotate. When it’s offline he’s sending an entire factory worth of kitchen sinks at the damn ball.

Next over, Smith delivers a ball just outside off to Stokes. In the first innings, he would have defended it. Now he sweeps it into the stands, and then just laughs. The ridiculousness of his own life amuses him.

The crowd start cheering, “Four more years”.

It’s all insane.

One day,, someone is going to look at his numbers, and wonder why we still all talk about Stokes. All we will be able to say is, ‘You had to be there.’ But here is the thing, I have been there for almost all of it, and I still don’t fucken believe it.

He finds two more fours from a slash past slip and then a slap through covers. He’s already on 30, and no one seems to know what will happen next.

But when Foulkes delivers one full and wide, Stokes tries to hoik it through the legside. It is not a special ball, it doesn’t bounce weird or act odd. Stokes drags it across, but straight to Mitchell at midwicket.

This felt like a protest innings, perhaps even a dirty protest. And Mitchell, who had been spoiling things all day, hauled Stokes away.

In his pre-recorded speech to his team-mates he said, “Reasons can wait, I’ve had many trips to the well for you boys and I’ve got one more trip to do."

He’s right. The reasons are for later. In fact, when Ben Stokes is in a big moment, reason can wait. This is Stokes world, reason can fuck off. It’s emotion time.

*This piece was updated after Ben Stokes’ final innings batting innings.