Barney Ronay

It felt like this is something really worth watching.

And I remember seeing him going home.

I was going home on the plane and I went up some stairs.

I don't know if I should admit this, but to have to sneak a cigarette before I got on the plane.

And at the top of those stairs was Ben Stokes smoking.

having a cigarette before he got on the plane and looking a little bit all sheepish and he didn't really know who I was he'd seen me in the press conferences and he is just a normal bloke who's been caught up in this life who has a lot of talent and who really feels it deeply and yeah so I've gone on a lot there but I think the answer is they're just trying to see if they can keep him

That was the interesting thing.

That has been the interesting thing about the Stokes McCullum Key era.

It has felt like a return to amateurism, but a really shit version of that, where it's basically a bunch of very annoying, a very cliquey thing.

It does have shades of that, but it's kind of a club of...

The last really talented, successful, famous people to play this sport, enjoying it while the ship goes down, you know, playing quits on the deck.

And there is something in the English psyche which is utterly, utterly drawn to the idea of winning without effort.

And that's the dream.

I mean, people...

People would always accuse David Garrett of being a casual player, even though he absolutely was not.

But he had that sort of, you know, devil may care kind of thing.

And people really venerated him for that.

I mean, the irony is not really true with Stokes.

He works really hard, tries really hard, trains harder than everyone else.

I think that the kind of...