Stokes Calls Out Cricket's Drinking Culture as Root Takes Permanent England Test Captaincy

The podcast comments in plain language

Speaking on the “For the Love of Cricket” podcast with Stuart Broad and Jos Buttler, the 35-year-old Stokes said cricket carries a drinking culture that has not changed since the 1980s and that the relationship between alcohol and the sport has not moved on as the game has become more professional. He was clear that this was a comment about the wider culture, not a diagnosis of the current dressing room.

Stokes gave up alcohol for a stretch while recovering from an injury in 2025 and said on the podcast that he has had potentially dangerous relationships with alcohol at times in his career, but added that is no longer the case. The distinction matters for any reader trying to separate his personal experience from a structural point about how elite teams operate.

He also said he is working through his level three coaching badge while still playing, and that he would love to be England head coach one day. That off-field pipeline matters because the ECB’s new Test coaching and captaincy appointments will eventually be reviewed by people who have just been through the same badge process.

Root confirmed as permanent captain, Fleming joins as Test coach

The England and Wales Cricket Board confirmed on Tuesday that Joe Root, who has held the Test captaincy on an interim basis since the second Test against New Zealand, has now been appointed permanently. Root’s first spell as Test captain ran from 2017 to 2022, during which he captained England to a record 27 Test wins in 65 matches before stepping down in April 2022.

Alongside Root, Stephen Fleming, the former New Zealand captain, has been appointed England Test coach. Fleming will work with Root across formats in the Test set-up. The combination matters because Root’s first captaincy spell ended in 2022 without an Ashes win, and his second spell begins with the same trophy on the horizon for the 2027 series in Australia.

Why the drinking-culture remark is being read as a wider signal

The ECB introduced a midnight curfew after the Ashes tour and updated its policy after the Stokes and Atkinson nightclub incident to advise England players to avoid alcohol on match day minus one and match day plus one. Stokes missed the second Test against New Zealand following an incident in a London nightclub involving him and bowler Gus Atkinson, which is the immediate backdrop to his podcast remarks.

Harry Brook, 27, was promoted to Test vice-captain for the 2025-26 Ashes tour before it emerged he had been struck by a nightclub bouncer in Wellington the night before a white-ball game in New Zealand in November. With Brook now the senior vice-captain under Root and Stokes retired from international cricket, the dressing-room alcohol conversation lands on a group whose off-field conduct has already shaped two England tours.

Stokes denied on the podcast that the England team has a drinking problem. The point he was making, as several England-supporters’ podcasts have noted, is that the policy on paper and the culture in practice still diverge, and that closing that gap takes more than a written curfew.

What the Test record says about the job in front of Root and Fleming

England have not won a Test series since late 2024. They were beaten 4-1 in the Ashes in Australia and lost 2-1 at home to New Zealand, the same series in which Root took interim charge and Stokes retired mid-tour. Across Root’s first captaincy spell, England won 27 of 65 Tests, a record, but also lost more often than later periods under Stokes’s leadership.

Fleming’s appointment is the first ECB move that pulls in an overseas head coach for the Test set-up. Fleming captained New Zealand across formats and has a long record in franchise and high-performance environments. His working brief will be to pair Root’s tactical nous with a more measured off-field environment that survives the away-tour weeks where the previous culture pointed.

For fantasy readers tracking England’s red-ball fixtures, the read is straightforward: the captaincy and coaching are settled, the Ashes is the next benchmark, and the dressing-room standards conversation is being held publicly rather than behind closed doors. Our editorial guide on the how to play principles for captaincy and toss-branch decision-making applies cleanly when the team sheet changes mid-series, which has now happened twice in one New Zealand summer.

Reading Stokes’s retirement, not his return

Stokes has rejected suggestions he could reverse his England retirement for the 2027 Ashes. Asked on the podcast if he had definitely retired, he replied: “Definitely.” That cuts off a recurring rumour that surfaced each time his name appeared on speculation pieces about the next Ashes leader.

The level three coaching badge gives him a clean route back into the professional game without forcing an international comeback. If he finishes the badge during his remaining franchise career, a future ECB appointment is plausible without ever reversing the June 2026 retirement.

For readers who built fantasy XIs around Stokes as captain or vice-captain in English conditions, the policy answer is the same one that applied the moment he announced: re-plan now, do not hold a Stokes-named slot on the assumption that his status changes.

What to watch in the next Test window

The next useful data point is the first England Test under the permanent Root-Fleming partnership. Selection signals to look for are simple: who is named vice-captain for the next fixture, whether the ECB confirms a written code of conduct update in light of the podcast remarks, and whether Brook’s behaviour code, set after the Wellington incident, is referenced publicly.

Fleming’s first press conference will probably include a question about whether an overseas coach will keep the same dressing-room tone as the previous English staff. If he answers in his usual New Zealand register — short, dry, evidence-led — that will be a useful baseline.

For fantasy readers, the captaincy handover is the cleanest information to act on. A settled Root at the top, Brook as vice-captain, and a Test coach who has coached captains before is a configuration that does not need last-minute reinterpretation.

What we label and what we do not

Verified: this report is built from the BBC Sport piece by Mandeep Sanghera dated Tuesday 4 August 2026, with the ECB’s confirmation of Root and Fleming drawn from the same record. Every quoted phrase attributed to Stokes is from that source.

Industry pattern: the broader drinking-culture discussion is not unique to England and has been raised in Australia and South Africa dressing-room coverage. We do not pretend this report is the first to raise it.

Unknown: any specific dressing-room policy document newer than the midnight curfew, and any quote from Root or Fleming before their first joint press appearance. We will not invent those.

Reading checklist for fantasy players

Three short passes help turn a single news item into a useful fantasy decision. First, note which dressing-room roles actually changed — captain, vice-captain, head coach — and which stayed the same. Root, Brook and Fleming are now the three named roles, with Stokes’s international slot vacated.

Second, check whether selection policy has shifted in a way that affects minutes or role exposure. The Stokes-Atkinson nightclub incident and the Brook Wellington incident together shifted the ECB’s stance on alcohol around match days, but neither directly changed selection minutes. A bowler who would have played will still play; a batter who had been edging selection does not gain extra overs.

Third, decide whether the off-field news warrants a captain or vice-captain swap in any fantasy XI you have open. As a rule, a permanent captaincy change at the international level is worth a vice-captain reshuffle in your fantasy XI only when the new captain is also the new Test batting position you would have picked anyway. Otherwise, the role change is news, not a selection signal.

Questions readers ask