Revealed: Why England Test captain Ben Stokes quit drinking ahead of India Test series

England Test captain Ben Stokes has revealed that he gave up drinking alcohol at the start of 2025, just months before their Test series against India. Stokes recently appeared on a podcast, where he touched upon various aspects of his life including his decision to quit drinking.

England are scheduled to host India for a five-match Test series starting 24 June. Stokes will lead the side and will hope to start the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) 2025-27 cycle on a high. England have performed poorly in the last three editions of WTC, failing to finish even in the top three.

Stokes on big decision to quit alcohol

Before the much-anticipated Test series between England and India, Stokes opened up on why he suddenly stopped drinking alcohol. Stokes told the Untapped podcast, hosted by Spencer Matthews, that he quit alcohol to help himself recover from injury faster. The 33-year-old all-rounder has been dealing with a left hamstring injury since late last year and also had knee surgery.

“After my first major injury, I remember the shock of it and after the initial adrenaline had stopped I was thinking, ‘How has this happened?’. [I thought] ‘We did have a bit of a drink four or five nights ago, could that have played a part?’ It wouldn’t have helped. Then I was like ‘OK, I need to start changing what I do’,” Stokes said.

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“In the 90s and 00s, there were unbelievable stories [about drinking]. It’s definitely settled down a lot over the years. The game is more demanding on the body than it was then. There’s so much more cricket, there’s so much more in the schedule that it’s just impossible for the body to be able to withstand all of that anyway - even without the downsides of what a couple of beers at the end of the day can do to you for the next day,” he added.

Stokes hurt his hamstring during the third Test against New Zealand last year and had surgery later on. He was expected to be out for at least three months but hasn’t returned to action yet. He also hasn’t played any County Championship matches for Durham this season. Stokes has already retired from white-ball formats and doesn’t play in the IPL either. Despite this, he has been facing a lot of injury concerns.