Ben Stokes left the door open for coming out of ODI retirement for the next year’s World Cup. The Englishman had dropped a bombshell in July when he announced his retirement from the fifty-over format. With the ODI World Cup in India coming next year, the England all-rounder could be tempted to reverse the decision as the world champions try to defend their crown.
Stokes, 31, retired from ODIs to focus on other two formats and to manage his workload, which has become increasingly hard with the schedule getting more and more cluttered. While doing so, he had said playing three formats is unsustainable and urged the administrators to take steps to prevent other multi-format players from taking similar decision.
Following England’s T20 World Cup triumph in Australia recently, the white-ball coach Matthew Mott floated the idea of Stokes making a return to ODIs for next year’s title defence.
“When he spoke to me about his ODI retirement, one of the first things I said was that I’d back any decision he made, but I said to him he didn’t necessarily have to retire, he could just not play 50 overs for a while,”
he said.
Stokes was crucial for England in winning the T20 World Cup, scoring an unbeaten 52 to take his side over the line in hostile conditions. He came to Australia ahead of the tournament, having not played a single T20I since March 2021.
However, he ended the World Cup with 110 runs and six wickets. There’s a belief that The player can produce such an impact even if he directly plays in India. ODIs are perhaps Stokes’ best format, where he averages 38.98 with the bat and has 74 wickets with the ball.
Speaking ahead of the first Test on the tour of Pakistan, Stokes revealed Rob Key, director of men’s cricket had talked to him about an ODI return in Abu Dhabi last week. He was dismissive at the time but did not rule himself out of contention.
“Keysy pulled me to the side in the UAE and as soon as he said ’50-over World Cup’ I just walked away,”
said Stokes.
“Who knows? At the moment, being out here, my focus is solely on this series (against Pakistan). But it’s one of those things. But who knows how I might feel towards a World Cup at the time.
Going to a World Cup is an amazing thing to do, to represent your country. But at the moment I’m not even thinking about that.”
The England Test captain has a heavy workload in front of him for the next 10 months before the ODI World Cup, which will take place in October-November. After these three Tests in Pakistan, England will tour New Zealand for two Tests in February.
Stokes will then show up for the Indian Premier League, for which he is likely to fetch a big amount in the auction on December 16. Following the Indian Premier League, he then has a four-day Test against Ireland lined up before the Ashes, which finishes at the end of July.
