Cricket News

‘Just look at what has happened to Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson’, Nasser Hussain has his say on Ben Stokes’ retirement

Former England Captain Ben Stokes did not want to function in half capacity in all the 3 formats and experienced burnout while doing so.  And, due to that, he recently announced his ODI retirement and played his last match on Tuesday, July 19th, which ended in a loss by 62 runs to South Africa at Durham. 

The all-rounder chose to retire from ODIs after claiming that the prospect of playing in all three formats and franchise cricket was unsustainable. Recently appointed captain of the Test team, Stokes has chosen to divert his focus to the remaining two formats instead of the increasingly uninteresting ODI format.

Opining that the Durham player wants to function at his best and avoid a dip in form and reduced performance levels like Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson, Nasser Hussain wrote for his column in the Daily Mail:

“Some might suggest 80% of Stokes is enough but the problem is that once you play at 80%, it can lead lead to a drop in performance in another format. Just look at what has happened to Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson, for example. He doesn’t want to become stale,”

The same kind of case applies to Virat Kohli because the star batter has stepped down from captaincy in all 3 formats so that he can prolong his career and also lighten his workload due to hectic scheduling and playing too much cricket.

“Compared to years gone by, when he was fully fit, Tuesday was drastically different. After a couple of balls, he was limping off towards the side of the pitch, not fully maintaining his momentum through the crease and down it.” Hussain added. 

Ben Stokes ended his ODI career on a forgettable note as he conceded 44 runs with the ball in just 5 overs. With the bat, he recorded just 5 runs of 11 balls in his name.