Ben Stokes rules out the 2027 Ashes. He has quit and come back before.
Ben Stokes has ruled out the 2027 Ashes and wants to coach England. Ten months before the squad is named, the cricket board is keeping the door open.
What happened
In his first interview since retiring, on a podcast with Stuart Broad and Jos Buttler, Stokes rules out a 2027 Ashes return and says his long-term ambition is to coach England.
Ben Stokes will not play in next summer’s home Ashes, the series against Australia. He told Stuart Broad and Jos Buttler on the For The Love Of Cricket podcast that he is working on his level three coaching qualification while still playing for Durham. The 35-year-old wants to coach England once he stops.
His retirement in late June was sudden. During the third Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge, he told the dressing room it would be his last match for England.
He had been dropped for the second Test of that series for breaking a team curfew, a set time to be back in, and England lost the series 2-1. It came after a 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia over the winter.
The England and Wales Cricket Board, the ECB, is not treating the matter as closed. Four days before the podcast came out, team director Rob Key said he would not be surprised if Stokes came back. He said anything is possible with Stokes, and that their relationship is undamaged.
England have moved on in the meantime. Joe Root is Test captain again and Stephen Fleming is head coach.
The 2027 Ashes starts at Trent Bridge on , with five Tests running to . England usually name a Test squad about a week to ten days before a series, so the squad should come in early to mid .
Sources: The Guardian, Sky Sports (2)
The Pattern
Three of five England stars who said they were done came back. Each time, England asked them to. When no one asked, the player stayed away. We looked at England cricket’s star players since 1977 who said they were finished with England, and found five clear cases. Ian Botham is left out, because his famous comebacks came after a ban and after an injury, and he never said he had retired.
Show the other 3 cases
The Read
The chances of a return are low, and history is the reason they are not lower. Stokes has ruled out the Ashes twice since June. Yet he came back to one-day cricket after calling the schedule unsustainable, and it was his text message that brought Moeen Ali back. He still plays and is still fit enough to matter. Every return in this record started with England asking, and Key started asking in public on . A home Ashes is the strongest pull in English cricket.
The case against is that this exit looks more like Cook in 2018 than Stokes in 2022. The exit was bruising. His coaching plan is concrete and already under way. England have also reorganised without him, under Root and Fleming. A recall would need a new captain and a new coach to want the old captain around in their first home Ashes. The record is also small, and Kevin Pietersen was sacked, so his case fits less well.
If Stokes says no again once the 2027 county season starts, or Fleming names a settled team through the early summer, the chances fall further.
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