Ben Stokes has opened up on his struggles following the death of his father Ged from cancer in 2020
(Picture: PA)Ben Stokes has lifted the lid on the personal turmoil he experienced in the aftermath of his father’s death during the pandemic, and how it led to him falling out of love with cricket.
Stokes, England’s Test captain, is the subject of a documentary on Amazon Prime that is released this Friday, day two of the Second Test against South Africa at Old Trafford.
The documentary follows Stokes’s story in recent years, from the highs of the summer of 2019’s twin peaks in the World Cup and Ashes at Headingley, to the lows of the Bristol brawl of 2017 and his father’s passing.
Stokes’s father Ged, a celebrated rugby league player and coach from New Zealand, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2019, and died a year later at the age of 65.
Stokes cut short his summer in 2020 to visit his father for one final time in Christchurch, and the cameras travelled with him. “The hardest thing to think about is that when I leave here, it is more than likely the last time I see him before the inevitable happens,” Stokes reflects at the time. He was in the Maldives with his wife and children when Ged died a couple of months later.
Stokes details how he came to resent cricket in the aftermath of his father’s death. In the summer of 2021, Stokes took an indefinite break from the game to prioritise his mental health in the wake of his father’s death.
He details a breakdown he suffered in a Nottingham hotel in the early hours of the morning following a game in the Hundred last year, which led to him calling his agent, the former England and Lancashire batter Neil Fairbrother, and taking a break.
Two weeks into the break, Stokes — appearing visibly low — was interviewed by filmmaker Sam Mendes, who helped produce the documentary, about his mental state at the time.
“I knew how much he [Ged] cared about me and the sport and me playing cricket, but when he became terminally ill, everything I did was for Dad,” says Stokes. “Now he’s not here, he’s taken that with him.
“Since Dad got sick, there was just a real change to my training, outside of my cricket stuff took a big hit because I didn’t have the enthusiasm or the determination to do that extra stuff any more. Waking up and having no energy, I got into this mindset that the only things I could think about cricket were negative, which was s**t because of how much it has given me. But even still I am sat here thinking about that, and it’s not a nice place to be.
“When he passed away, it was like I have to find that other reason why I played before. And the honest answer is that unfortunately at the moment [in August 2021], since he’s passed, I haven’t got that back.
“Can’t hide behind it, can’t help the way you feel. The more you try and compress it down, the worse it’s going to be. That’s what I felt like happened to me. Kept on trying to wake up and crack on, and the worse it got.”
The break lasted more than three months and ended when a second operation on a serious finger issue made him believe he could play in last winter’s Ashes, which set in train a series of events that led to him becoming England captain this year.
Stokes reveals he takes medication to manage his mental health.
“I took some time out, three months,” he says. “I never spoke about this kind of stuff really. I was catastrophising quite badly. I never thought I’d be on medication to help me with that kind of stuff. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed to say it because I needed the help at the time.”
