Ben Stokes, Kane Williamson and the power of the image

Two men born in New Zealand have been in the headlines recently. For one of them, Ben Stokes, born in Christchurch, the headline is his natural habitat. The other, Kane Williamson, born in Tauranga, announced his retirement in the middle of a Test series against an England side originally led by Stokes.

Williamson is one of the nicest players to have held a cricket bat, a modern icon, and possibly the greatest batter from his country. Yet, you do not retire in the middle of a series without upsetting team plans, throwing less experienced players into the cauldron, and causing some chaos. Head coach Rob Walter put it as delicately as possible: “You don’t lose Kane Williamson off the team sheet and get stronger.”

Still, even he bought into the prevailing talk of altruism and magnanimity saying, “That’s the person that he is, and just [shows] the regard that he holds the team in to not just carry on but actually to hand the opportunity to someone else who would take his place and fill a more long-term role for this team.”

How much more altruistic and magnanimous might it have been had Williamson called it a day ahead of the series (New Zealand trail 0-1) so it wouldn’t throw the team into turmoil?

Wrong timing

I think it is selfish to do it the way he did. The man whose timing was impeccable, got it wrong. Perhaps he wanted to play one final Test at Lord’s.

New Zealand’s Kane Williamson
| Photo Credit:
Action Images via Reuters

Stokes got his timing wrong too — but he was not allowed to get away with it. As in the case of Williamson, this had something to do with his public image. Stokes, who missed an Ashes series because of charges of affray (which were ultimately dismissed by an English Court), has a reputation of a player who is likely to get into trouble and as captain must be made an example of.

The details of what happened in the Chelsea night club after England had won the Lord’s Test are not clear. What is known is that a rugby player threw a punch at Gus Atkinson who was with Stokes, but missed and hit a security guard instead. Neither of the England players present has been accused of getting physical.

Stokes is paying for breaking the midnight curfew, a rule he was partly responsible for bringing into force. But England had just won a Test, there were ten days to go before the next one, and one might have expected a certain leeway.

What is it with recent English all-rounders? Ian Botham was a legendary trouble-maker. At a World Cup, a drunk Andrew Flintoff took a pedalo hoping to meet up with Botham who he thought was having a drink on a boat.

Had the roles been reversed — with Williamson breaking the curfew and Stokes announcing his retirement mid-series — it is possible that again, only one of them might have got away with it.

This is not to say that team discipline is unimportant. Ironically, vice-captain Harry Brook did not automatically take over from Stokes because he too had been involved in a night club incident on the eve of a One-Day International in New Zealand. England’s damage control involved bringing back Joe Root as captain to replace his successor.

England’s cricket board sees merit in bringing matters of indiscipline to the public; or if it is public knowledge already, not getting into a cover-up mode. It is comforting to think — as an Indian fan told me recently — that such things do not happen in India. But of course they do. An Indian player has written about how, spotting the manager while returning to the hotel after a night out, he pretended he was on a morning run!

Indian players were once treated like schoolboys, but now are given credit for being adults. Stories of old-timers unable to bowl because they were nursing hangovers are legion. But in today’s set-up the competition for places is too severe for players to take such chances.

The lessons from the New Zealand-born is that success (and temperament) dissolves all flaws. Had England won the Ashes in Australia (they lost 1-4), Stokes may have been treated more like Williamson!