We’d say he’s gone for a combination of cachet and money. Tests for the former, T20s for the latter, deeming ODIs the lukewarm water in the middle.

If the average person were given two choices, I assume the vast majority will make a decision based on two factors:

1. Which one of these am I really good at?
2. Which one gets me more money?

Admittedly Stokes isn’t the average man and doesn’t need to worry too much about #2 as either option would ensure he’ll retire wealthy. Of course, motivational gurus like Steve Jobs might urge you to “follow your passion” – if your passion is something you’re really good at, this makes sense. Otherwise it’s a rather shitty option. Thus, Stokes should have asked himself in which format would he be indispensable for England. Let’s be honest: England won the last few test matches because Bairstow decided to treat visiting teams with the love and warmth Joseph Stalin reserved for his friends. Stokes will not be missed in T20s either because pretty much no one will be missed in T20s – it’s a format where anyone in the eleven can win the game for you. Arguably the format Stokes is best at is the ODIs. I do agree that ODIs might not have much of a future except for the World Cup thing but they’re going to be around for the next decade or so at least. And it’s the one format where Stokes can be the game changer for England. This is a puzzling decision.

1. What you enjoy most (or least)
2. What pays best (or worst)
3. What you think has a future (or doesn’t)
4. What gives you a wide profile (or doesn’t)

I can’t speak for the first of these (maybe one of you can), but to me ODIs is last #2, probably last in #3. As for #4, the test captain is still someone that can be named by people who aren’t cricket fans, and T20 has developed a following all of its own. ODIs are a bit Bob Cunis – they’re too short for the test crowd and too long for the T20 crowd. They seem to rely on fans from both ends saying , “Yeh, why not, there’s nothing else on TV”. Is there such a thing as an ODI fan? Specifically, I mean, as in one that dislikes tests and T20.

The exception to this is a strange and rare thing that I will call TWCWEGTTF. This stands for The World Cup When England Get To The Final. Suddenly, ODI cricket is all that anyone cares about in the whole of England, cricket fans or not. As Stokes found out, playing in TWCWEGTTF gives you your greatest ever career moment. That he replaced it with a greatest ever career moment five weeks later doesn’t change this. Even without Headingly, by the end of 2019 Stokes would have been a household name – put there by ODI cricket.

The next opportunity for TWCWEGTTF is November 2023. Maybe Stokes has concluded that profile-widening is now unnecessary, or that the chance of TWCWEGTTF is remote. Or maybe it’s got nothing to do with this, and that he is just picking the versions he enjoys and that pay him well. No shame in that.

Good point

I have a long-standing ‘gentlemen’s wager’ that Tests will outlive 50-over ODIs, I still feel pretty confident in that, at least in the men’s game.

But that’s mainly based on the continuing interest in Tests from fans in England and Australia in particular. If the balance of power/wealth shifts within the ICC (eg if some ‘new’ nations develop large cricketing audiences and ‘media markets’, perhaps off the back of T20 being included in the Olympics or the emergence of some incredibly talented players from non-Test-playing countries) then that could change… although I think the fact that the T20 and 50-over formats (let alone the Hundred) are insufficiently differentiated from each other is probably going to lead to Tests still having a ‘special’ status.

Time.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/62224133

Someone should write a five-part dystopian short story about that for Cricinfo.