Ben Stokes’ ODI retirement should be a wake-up call to cricket’s leaders | Ali Martin

From the ECB to ICC, governing bodies need to realise how the packed schedule makes the 50-over game vulnerable

It feels fitting in some ways that during a week that is hotter than Hades – when alarm bells about our direction of travel should be ringing even louder – Ben Stokes has announced his retirement from one-day international cricket.

Yep, the champion all-rounder who powered England to World Cup victory by the barest of margins three summers ago, in front of a packed house at Lord’s and with the UK’s largest cricket audience since the heady 2005 Ashes, has decided the 50-over stuff must make way. If not, his schedule as an elite all-format player would become suffocating. The hope now is that this similarly prompts a wake-up call.