Do we like them?

Do we like Ben Stokes?

Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful turned up and there's real charity work, but a 2018 ECB fine and a 2026 written warning keep it from the top end.

Ben Stokes is the all-rounder who captained England's Test side until he retired from international cricket in June 2026, aged 35. Barely two months later he signed with the Adelaide Strikers for the 2026-27 Big Bash, reportedly on A$500,000, with former Australia captain Tim Paine coaching them. So he'll be on Aussie telly this summer, one way or another.

The stain everyone knows is Bristol, 2017. Stokes was arrested after a street fight outside a nightclub, and he said the two men involved had been harassing two gay men and he stepped in. A jury found him not guilty of affray in August 2018. Years later, in an Amazon documentary, he said he “probably would have never forgiven myself for ever walking past something like that”.

Being acquitted didn't end it. The ECB charged him and Alex Hales with bringing the game into disrepute over the same night, and a disciplinary hearing fined them in December 2018. His match bans were already served or suspended, so he stayed available for England. A court said no crime, the cricket authorities still said not on.

The fresh one came in June 2026. The ECB investigated Stokes and teammate Gus Atkinson over an alleged breach of team protocols after a nightclub incident, and Stokes was dropped for the second Test. On 22 June the Cricket Regulator found insufficient evidence of a breach, and the ECB said Stokes was not involved in or witness to any altercations. Both still got written warnings for contravening contractual obligations, and a few days later he announced he was done.

On the harm test the record is clean but thin. We found no campaigning against LGBTQ+ or trans people, nothing demeaning women or migrants, and no climate or vaccine nonsense in what we read. The one time sexuality came up, it was his account of defending a gay couple, and a jury cleared him. Where searches turned up nothing, that is all it means.

The good stuff is real. In May 2020 he ran his first half marathon in 1 hour 39 to raise money for NHS Charities Together and the cricket charity Chance to Shine. He also took on The Sun over a 2019 front-page story about his family, and the paper settled his privacy claim, paid damages and apologised in 2021.