Ben Stokes: I don't see World Cup victory as redemption

Ben Stokes says he does not think his Cricket World Cup final heroics have “redeemed” him.

He played the game of his life as England beat New Zealand in one of the most dramatic games of cricket ever.

Stokes scored an unbeaten 84 to leave the scores tied at theend of a dramatic 100 overs — and then returned to bat for the Super Over before England were crowned world champions after scoring more boundaries than their opponents.

His exploits came less than a year after he was cleared of affray following a fight outside a nightclub in Bristol.

But he told Good Morning Britain: “I won’t look back and say I redeemed myself or anything like that, I’m an athlete and a cricketer and it’s what we are paid to do, to win trophies.”

Stokes, who was born in New Zealand but grew up in Cumbria, said getting through “the hardest moment of my life” with the trial made Sunday’s success sweeter.

He said: “I got emotional there, at the end, and that was probably a culmination of lots of things, happiness that we won it and subconsciously thinking and remembering back to what I went through.

“Moments like that are very special. It’s something I desperately wanted to do this summer, lift that World Cup.

"It’s quite heavy, I didn’t realise how heavy it was but it was an amazing feeling.”

Stokes, who said the team’s success after the nail-biting Super Over had still “not sunk in yet”, admitted it was a “scary place to be” after being asked to bat in the decider.

“But I think I would rather be out there in the middle trying to do it than have to watch — as that’s the worst place to be, to watch and to know you can’t influence anything that’s going on in the middle… it’s not one of the things I ever want to be involved in again.”