GEORGIE PARKER: Love him or hate him, retiring England captain Ben Stokes played Ashes villain perfectly

Ben Stokes retires from international cricket as one of England’s greatest ever players.

The tributes will rightly focus on his match-winning batting, his ability to change a game with the ball, his fearless on-ground leadership and, of course, that innings at Headingley in 2019 that still gives Australian cricket fans nightmares.

But while England will miss the all-rounder, I think cricket in general will miss something else just as much: its villain.

When I say villain, I mean a sporting villain. The player you’re absolutely thrilled wears your colours, but can’t stand when they’re wearing someone else’s. Every sport has them, and to be honest, I think you’re lucky if your team has one. They’re the competitors with an edge that can’t be taught and more often than not, they’re also some of the very best to play the game.

As Australians, we had David Warner - an absolute bulldog who thrived when his back was against the wall. England also had Stuart Broad, whose refusal to walk after edging Ashton Agar in the 2013 Ashes turned him into public enemy number one in Australia.

Virat Kohli became that figure for India, summed up perfectly when Tim Paine chirped from behind the stumps, “I know he’s your captain, but you can’t seriously like him as a bloke?”

They’re everywhere.

The AFL has Toby Greene: a pest who refuses to be defined by size in a forward line of giants. Tennis has Novak Djokovic: the best to ever do it, but a polarising figure to say the least and Formula One has Max Verstappen who brings the ‘Dutch arrogance’ to a new level.

Different personalities, different sports, but they all play the same role. They’re the competitors who seem to thrive on the hostility and embrace the confrontation.

We like to think we want every athlete to be a perfect role model. Calm. Respectful. Measured. But imagine if every cricketer had Pat Cummins’ personality. We’d admire them and we’d of course want our kids to be like them, but we probably wouldn’t remember half of them.

Sport needs characters. It needs players who walk the line (and sometimes cross over it), who make opposition supporters desperate to see them fail, and who somehow seem to perform even better when thousands of people are willing them to fail.

That’s what made Ben Stokes special.

You never felt comfortable while he was still at the crease. Headingley proved that better than anything. Australia had that Test won, then Stokes decided otherwise. It remains one of the greatest innings the game has ever seen. That’s what villains do. They break your heart if they’re the opposition, or make you walk taller if they’re one of yours.

I’ve played alongside someone like that myself in international hockey. Every now and then she’d do something that made you wonder whether she’d gone a touch too far while wearing the coat of arms. She had white-line fever unlike anything I’ve ever seen - the moment the whistle blew, she became someone I couldn’t necessarily be myself. Fierce, ruthless and relentless - but was the sort of player who could be the difference between winning and losing.

But while my team had one, so did plenty of others. It was funny how much you’d let slide when it was your teammate doing it, yet absolutely despise the opposition player for the exact same thing. That’s the unwritten contract of sport: you defend your villain but you loathe everyone else’s.

Every successful team needs someone like that. Not dirty or malicious. Just someone so fiercely competitive they drag everyone else into the fight and refuse to take a backward step.

I think we’ll miss Ben Stokes for more than his runs, wickets and captaincy. He gave England someone Australians desperately wanted to beat. Victories felt sweeter because he was there, but defeats hurt more because so often it was just him changing the course of a match almost on his own.

The statistics will remember Ben Stokes as one of the greatest all-rounders of his generation. History will remember Headingley, the World Cup final, the Ashes and the Bazball era, but I’ll remember something else.

I’ll remember that every time Australia played England, there was one bloke you wanted back in the pavilion more than anyone else.

Every sport needs heroes but every great sport also needs villains. Because the truth is, they’re only villains because they’re wearing the wrong jumper.