I won’t look back and say I redeemed myself or anything like that, says Ben Stokes
Ben Stokes has stated he is an athlete and winning trophies is exactly what they are paid for. Stokes' career threatened to prematurely end after his involvement in the Bristol Night Club brawl but was given a clean chit back in 2017. He was banned, fined and axed as the vice-captain too.Â
After the night club brawl back in 2017, Stokes’ career took a massive turn and was banned and fined by the board for bringing the game into disgrace. However, he drilled his way back and has put up impactful performances in the past. He played a crucial role behind England’s successful campaign in the World Cup.Â
“I won’t look back and say I redeemed myself or anything like that - I’m an athlete and a cricketer and it’s what we are paid to do, to win trophies. It was coming back from all of that, it was tough. Getting back into cricket obviously massively helped straight after that,” Stokes told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
Stokes family, friends and teammates played a key role when his career was going through a low. He credited them for his success as the all-rounder was named Man of the Match award in the nail-biting final. Â
“It was a stressful time for me, my wife, my family back home. I had amazing people around me, my team-mates, friends, family. They have to take a lot of credit for helping me to get through that. I got emotional there, at the end, and that was probably a culmination of lots of things, happiness that we won it and subconsciously thinking and remembering back to what I went through,” he said.
This is the first time when a world Cup and Ashes has been scheduled in the same calendar year and Stokes has quickly shifted his attention towards the Urn. With the World Cup being won, the southpaw feels that still have a lot of work to do.
“We’ve achieved half of what we wanted to do, which is winning the World Cup. Everyone who is involved in the Test team as well as the one-day team has sort of had to get their heads around the fact that we have an Ashes series coming up and we still have a serious amount of work to do,” Stokes added.