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Ben Stokes Retirement: From World Cup Glory to Ashes Heroics, A Legendary Career Ends

Ben Stokes Retirement: After the Lord's Test in the recent series against New Zealand, Ben Stokes got embroiled in a controversy involving a late-night altercation and a breach of the team curfew but returned to the squad, and the captaincy, for the third Test of the series in Nottingham. Unfortunately, this proved to be his last dash, and Ben Stokes announced his retirement, in the middle of a session at Trent Bridge. A warrior, who was also a showman, will not be seen now in international cricket. He has so far ruled out any U-turn, even for the Ashes, next year. He was one of the best all rounders this game has ever seen. In terms of form, his best year was 2020, as he scored at an average of 50+ and claimed wickets at 18. However, he shall be remembered for 2019 for his two best moments: the 2019 World Cup final and the successful chase at Headingley (Ashes century). He played 38 innings for England that year, but the World Cup final and Headingley innings shall always be talked about as among the best. In the World Cup final chasing 242, by the end of 45th over, England had only Stokes with the company of the tail. The final three batters faced one ball combined and Stokes (84*), with the help of the overthrows took the match and England were champions on the boundary count. Similarly, he had his downfall also: Arrested in 2011 for a night out; Sent home by the England Lions in 2013 for unprofessional behaviour (drinking and breaking team rules); Missed the T20 World Cup in 2014 after punching a locker and in 2017 knocked out two men and fractured an eye socket in a fight. The 2026 incident of being dropped from the English cricket team after a fight in a Chelsea nightclub ultimately brought the end of all the agony. This all didnt suit his profile but he won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, given for what the English public think about a player as a personality (not just performance) and is among the three cricketers (in the last 50 years) to receive it (Others: Ian Botham and Freddie Flintoff). Among English captains (minimum 15 Tests), he is one of five with a win percentage of 50+ but also lost 18 Tests, bringing him to the third -best winning percentage and the fourth-worst losing percentage, for England. He scored 30 from 20 balls in a crazy final innings and received a huge ovation, returning. His final Test numbers: 7,273 runs at 34.46, and 252 wickets at 30.98 and incidentally Zak Foulkes was his last wicket, and he was the last man to get him out also. He had many moments to celebrate in his illustrious career: * In Tests one of the 3 players to score 7000+ runs and claim 200+ wickets. * Scored 2nd fastest 200 and the fastest 250 runs in an innings in Tests. * Twice scored 100+ runs in a session in Tests. * Before his last innings, he was the only cricketer who never got out while opening but got out in his last innings (in his last Test). * As a bowler, once he broke a 300+ runs (in his last Test), 3 times he broke 200+ runs, 18 times he broke 100+ runs and 49 times he broke 50+ runs partnerships in Test cricket. * As per allrounder Ratio (Batting average to Bowling average), out of 26 players (min. qualification: 2000+ runs and 200+ wickets in Tests), with the figure of 1.112 (34.46/30.99) Stokes is at number ten, sandwiched between Chris Cairns (1.140) and R Ashwin (1.073). * In his last Test innings, batted at number 2 (it just happened or did it deliberately-no one knows) and completed the set of batting in all positions from 1-11 in the batting order. * The only player in Tests to achieve all three of these: Batted in all 11 batting positions; Dismissed the batters from all 11 batting positions and took catches of batters from all 11 batting positions. Also Read: Live Cricket Score * He scored an average of 33 runs off 57 balls per innings, bowled an average of 13 overs to claim 1.38 wickets per innings and took a catch per Test, justifying a proper all-rounder tag.