{"id":53680,"date":"2026-03-23T21:36:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/?p=53680"},"modified":"2026-03-23T21:36:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:36:26","slug":"cg40le1nwkzoat_mediumrssat_campaignrss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/2026\/03\/23\/cg40le1nwkzoat_mediumrssat_campaignrss\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Stokes: England captain says past three months &#8216;hardest period&#8217; of his tenure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Ben Stokes says the past three months have been &#8220;the hardest period&#8221; of his England captaincy, and backed the current regime to take the team forward.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 34-year-old posted an open letter to fans on social media after it was announced that he, head coach Brendon McCullum and England team managing director Rob Key would remain in their posts despite a 4-1 Ashes defeat over the winter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England&#8217;s Test tour of Australia was blighted by poor planning, substandard performances and off-the-field issues including concerns over alcohol consumption.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite this, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) resisted changing personnel after a review of the tour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Earlier on Monday, Key said there was &#8220;no bust-up&#8221; between Stokes and McCullum during the Ashes despite the pair offering conflicting messages during the series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Stokes subsequently said, in a post with a picture of himself, Key and McCullum, the existing England leadership group have the necessary &#8220;passion and desire&#8221; as he looked to the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Being England captain is the greatest honour a player can be given and I do not take it for granted,&#8221; Stokes wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It has its highs and it has its lows, it makes you want to smile it makes you want to cry. It completely and utterly consumes you and feels like it&#8217;s the only thing in your life at times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The last three months has without a doubt been the hardest period of my captaincy journey, it&#8217;s tested me in so many different ways and I&#8217;m sure every other captain has gone through this as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Baz [McCullum], Rob [Key] and myself have the passion and desire to take this team forward, we are going to give you everything we have, we know we made mistakes along the way and we have learnt from those mistakes, you learn more from failure than success.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Stokes has not played since he sustained a groin problem in the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney in January. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He is expected to play for Durham in the County Championship early next month before attention switches to England&#8217;s summer Test series&#8217; against New Zealand in June and Pakistan in August and September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Stokes acknowledged he had &#8220;learned a lot about myself&#8221; during a testing period in his career and posted a number of expletives, with asterisks, emphasising how much he &#8220;loves&#8221; cricket, the England team and being captain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I have got so much more to give to this role and I&#8217;m so happy that I get to do it with Baz and Rob,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We all appreciate every single person who supports us. We do what we do for many reasons, but one of those reasons is to bring our supporters and fans happiness and and a sense of pride and we will aim to do those things as much as we can in the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n#Ben #Stokes #England #captain #months #hardest #period #tenure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ben Stokes says the past three months have been &#8220;the hardest period&#8221; of his England captaincy, and backed the current&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mzansi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53682,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53680\/revisions\/53682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}