Ben Stokes says that he "loved every single moment" of his four-year tenure as England's Test captain, but admitted that the demands of the role drained him, to the point where he realised - in the wake of last winter's 4-1 defeat in the Ashes - that he simply didn't "have any more fight left in me".
Speaking to Sky Sports after his bombshell announcement on the fourth afternoon of the series decider against New Zealand, Stokes said the realisation had dawned on him during the build-up to the series opener at Lord's, rather than during the fall-out from his subsequent victory night-out, which in turn led to his omission from last week's Oval Test.
Stokes was speaking on the boundary's edge after what has now turned out to be his final active day as an England player. He said that he had confided in those closest to him - including his wife Clare, and his team-mates past and present, including Joe Root and Stuart Broad - before reaching a decision that was announced to a stunned stadium at 3.25pm, and moments before he capped a gruelling 11-over spell with his 252nd and final Test wicket.
"I'll never begrudge any moment where I've captained the team and walked the team out," Stokes said. "It's simply the greatest honour you could ever put on your shoulders as a player.
"But there's another side to it all which people don't see, people don't understand. Only people close to those people [captains] can really see it … it does drain you, it does affect you in a negative way. It's literally been four-and-a-half years where I've loved every single moment … but some moments have been harder than others."
Stokes' choreographed announcement has been interpreted as a bid to galvanise the Trent Bridge crowd, and enable England to ride a similar wave of goodwill to the one with which he launched his captaincy era in the summer of 2022, against the same opponents. He later strode out to open the batting - in what he insisted was a tactical decision given the tricky nature of the fourth-day wicket - and gave the crowd a brief glimpse of his glory years before miscuing a pull to mid-on and falling for 30 from 20 balls.
England closed on 103 for 4, chasing 373, leaving their hopes of salvaging the series looking slender in the extreme. Ultimately, Stokes admitted he has been living on borrowed time this summer, and acknowledged that he had been in a visibly subdued mood, even during England's 115-run win at Lord's earlier this month.
"The whole Lord's Test, I guess, brought back some negative feelings about where I was in my career," he said. That match had been England's first in more than five months, after defeat in the fifth Ashes Test at Sydney, and came after Stokes' build-up to the summer had been disrupted by a horrific facial injury sustained during a nets session at Durham in February.
"I've worked so hard from getting back home [from Australia] to try and make things right," he said. "That's what I thought I was doing. I put so much time and effort into it, but I maybe potentially burnt myself out. If I have too much time on my hands, it can actually be sometimes not be the best thing for me.
"When I got to that week at Lord's, it was a very interesting, strange feeling to go into that game. I gave myself every opportunity to [see if it was] just a blip, or if something wasn't quite right. But everyone I spoke to about [retirement], they just say it kicks you straight in the face. And I thought, a few weeks ago, that it did. As I was putting my pads on yesterday getting ready to go out there, that was the last nail in the coffin."
Stokes is not, however, ready to step away from all forms of cricket. After his omission for the Oval Test last week, he returned to Durham - "his boyhood club" - where he cracked a quickfire 95 against Northamptonshire that, he had hoped, would have given him a "new lease of life".
"But I just couldn't get that same feeling back here this week, as much as I was trying," he added. "I've been through some rocky times, personally … feeling I'm having to do something because it's the right thing to do.
"To be honest, it might sound quite selfish, but this decision is genuinely the best thing for me right now. Whether it's the best thing for the team going forward, I hope so. But it comes down to what I think will allow me to still love this game that I've played since I was a kid, and which has given me a career. I'm very excited about the next part of what I get to do."
During his pitch-side interview, Stokes was shown a montage of his career highs and lows - including his matchwinning exploits in his annus mirablis in 2019, and his experience of being hit for four consecutive sixes in the World T20 final in 2016. However, he admitted his most recent disappointment, as England captain in Australia last winter, was the one he has not been able to come to terms with.
"Some pretty cool things … some good times, some pretty bad times," he said afterwards. "I feel like I'd been pretty good throughout my career at overcoming on-field disappointment, off-field disappointment. And then the emotional side of things, since Australia. The way I said it to my wife was I don't actually think I have any more fight left in me to get over this, to be honest."
"This is brutal, what we do: physically, mentally. I'm 35. I feel like I have to do so much physical work to keep myself doing what I do out there. Again, do I have that in me? That fight in me to keep doing that? Because I know what it takes to walk out there and play for this country. There are so many things that have led me towards this being the right decision. There's the emotional side, the physical side, the mental side."
Reflecting on his proudest moments, Stokes admitted that he would forever be remembered for his extraordinary unbeaten century at Headingley in 2019, but said his own recollections of that series were tarnished by England's failure to reclaim the Ashes. Instead, he pinpointed his role, as a young player, in the 2015 Ashes win - the last that England have won - as well as his first experience of leading the side out as captain.
"If that had been the last game of the series and we'd won the series like that, that would have been pretty mint," he said of the Headingley innings. "One of my favourite knocks. I just wish it could have meant we won the series. I'll always be proud of what I managed to do there. I loved every minute of that game and that innings.
"I'm pretty happy and content with everything I've managed to do. I've captained, I'm an Ashes winner, I've won a 50-over World Cup, a T20 World Cup. I've also had the opportunity to captain the team and play alongside some of the best players to have played the game. There's not too much I can complain about, really."