“You don’t want to play for England. You just want to piss it up the wall with your mates, and have a good time.”Andy Flower said that to Ben Stokes in 2013, after he and Matt Coles were sent home from an England Lions tour of Australia for staying out until 5.30 in the morning. It was the kind of thing said to a talented young man who seemed determined to waste what he had been given.Around Christmas that year, Stokes was walking with his girlfriend Clare when they chanced upon Flower in conversation with other coaches. Stokes wanted to say: I told you so. Clare restrained him. She said Flower must have used it to motivate, not to disparage. Stokes knew she was right. He just couldn’t say it yet.What happened between that Lions tour and a dressing room at Trent Bridge on Sunday is the career.***He had already sat down with a psychologist by then, at Lord’s on a July day in 2013, sidling into the stands next to Mark Bawden. His captain at Durham had texted him: are you ok? He wasn’t. He told Bawden instead. Ben Stokes in action. (FILE photo)Bawden gave his verdict: Stokes was suffering from Bottle Bottle Bang syndrome. He had been throwing his emotions into a glass bottle for years. Bawden gave him a routine for the worst moments: go to the dressing room and pack up your kit bag. “My job is helping people realise that confidence isn’t the absence of fear or doubt. It’s trust in your method.”In March 2014 Stokes punched a locker and broke his hand. The bottle had banged again.***Story continues below this adA 258 in Cape Town in 2016. The fastest 250 in Test history. Eleven sixes, an England record. Then the T20 World Cup final in Kolkata. West Indies needed 19 off the last over, Carlos Brathwaite hit Stokes for four consecutive sixes. The bottle banged in public. He let the sixes go. That was new.ALSO READ | How Ben Stokes conquered the demons in his mind to become his team’s all-weather talismanBristol, September 2017. A nightclub. Arrested. Charged with affray. Dropped from the Ashes tour. “The hardest bit was when the day had finished and I had gone back to my room. I didn’t want to leave the hotel. I was just sat on my bed.” Found not guilty. Fined. Returned, quietly, rebuilt.2019 World Cup final, Lord’s. England fall to 86 for 4. Stokes makes 84 not out, ties the game, bats again in the Super Over. England win on boundary count. Six weeks later, Headingley. England set 359, slide to 286 for 9, last man Jack Leach at the other end. Leach scores one run. Stokes scores the rest. England win by one wicket.Story continues below this adHyderabad: England’s batter Ben Stokes plays a shot during the first day of the first Test cricket match between India and England, at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (PTI Photo/Shailendra Bhojak)His father Ged died in December 2020 from brain cancer. In June 2021 Stokes announced an indefinite break. “It was like I had a glass bottle I kept on throwing my emotions into. Eventually, it got too full and just exploded.” Five months away. He came back, as he always came back.***Joe Root resigned the captaincy in April 2022. Stokes was appointed. With Brendon McCullum he built Bazball. England swept New Zealand, swept Pakistan in Pakistan. Stokes became only the second cricketer, alongside Kallis, to combine 7,000 Test runs with 250 Test wickets. Twenty Tests without a hundred. He gave it to the team instead.A 4-1 in India where the batting collapsed whenever the ball moved. Another 4-1 in Australia. The method had limits.ALSO READ | From white ball to red, Ben Stokes a finisher unlike any otherStory continues below this adBrook. Chelsea. Curfews. And in that Trent Bridge Test, Stokes having to gesture Archer over on the field — a public summons to join a celebration the man had refused. The freedom Stokes modelled had been earned through arrest, trial, breakdown, a father’s death. It wasn’t clear it was transferable. Bazball said: express yourself. Some players heard only the first word.***A Monday night in June 2026. A nightclub, a Saracens rugby player, a fracas. An England security officer needed stitches. He missed the second Test. Before returning to Trent Bridge, Stokes referred only to leading the team “this week.”Before the fourth day he told his teammates of his decision. It was the second time in four days he had stood before them asking for something; the first time, he had been saying sorry. England skipper Ben Stokes in picture. (AP)“The reasons can wait, why, but I’ve had many trips to the well before for this team, for you blokes, for people beforehand and I’ve got one more trip to do. The only thing I ask, please, is can everyone do the same. The only thing I want is to be able to walk off that field, regardless of the result, knowing that I’ve had this group give everything for the last two days. I’ve got the emotional side out of it. Now it’s time to go to work. Please, everyone else come with me.”Story continues below this adALSO READ | Inspiration behind Ben Stokes’ leadership and high work rate is a Brad Pitt movieThen he went out and bowled. Then he took a wicket with his next ball, arms spread wide, engulfed by teammates.***After tea he walked out to open the batting with Duckett. The New Zealand players formed a guard of honour. His England teammates lined the boundary. Root met him at the rope with a high-five and a hug. First ball, he charged. Stepped out of the crease, moved leg-side, slapped it to mid-off. Second ball, he attempted the reverse sweep. Missed. That was Ben Stokes in his last international innings — charge first, ask questions later. He hit two sixes: one lofted over the bowler’s head, one scooped over backward square leg, the momentum taking him across the stumps and off the pitch entirely. Then Foulkes angled one in, Stokes went for another boundary, lost shape, and Mitchell dived low to take the catch. He walked off after one last look around Trent Bridge. Every New Zealand player found him on the way back. Santner hugged him. Family stood. Former players stood. The crowd stood.It was less a wicket than a curtain call.***Two nightclub incidents, fifteen years apart. The first nearly destroyed him. The second ended him on his own terms, mid-spell, at Trent Bridge. Between them: the 258, the World Cup final, Headingley, the break, the father’s death.Story continues below this adIn the only language that mattered, he had told Flower so all along. He packed up the kit bag one last time.