England captain Ben Stokes officially announced his retirement from international cricket on Sunday (June 28), bringing a close to his illustrious 15-year career.

The retirement followed intense scrutiny regarding an off-field controversy. Hours after winning the first Test against New Zealand at Lord's, Stokes and teammate Gus Atkinson breached a midnight curfew at a Chelsea nightclub, where an altercation took place involving a Saracens rugby player and an ECB security guard.

While Stokes was dropped from the second Test at The Oval on disciplinary grounds during the investigation, the independent Cricket Regulator and the ECB later cleared both players of violent conduct, noting insufficient evidence of regulatory breaches.

Ever since the nightclub episode, speculations were rife about Stokes' international retirement and it was on Day 4 of the third Test against New Zealand that the ace all-rounder made the official announcement.

After the day’s play, Ben Stokes detailed the emotional and mental exhaustion behind his shocking decision. He admitted to his wife that he was emotionally empty and lacked the drive to overcome recent on and off-field disappointments.

The crushing 4-1 Ashes loss in Australia weighed heavily on his mind, and the nightclub controversy added to his burnout.

"Since the Ashes, it's been really tough. It's the best thing I've ever been asked to do, to captain this team and captain this country. As good as it is, there are parts where it does drain you, and it does affect you in an emotional way," Stokes said during a chat with Sky Sports.

"Over the last five or six weeks, it felt like something else I had to try and overcome. I feel like I've been pretty good at that throughout my career-at overcoming on-field and off-field disappointment. But the emotional side of this since Australia... the way I described it to my wife is that I don't actually think I have any more fight left in me to get over this, to be honest," he added.

"I'm pretty happy and content with everything I've managed to do," he continued. "I've captained, I'm an Ashes winner, I've won a 50-over World Cup and 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."

The 35-year-old revealed that speaking openly with his wife and close confidants helped him realize he was suppressing his feelings and moving on was the right choice.

"You go through that whole process, you speak to people who are close to you, and you start letting more and more out. The more I spoke to my wife and other people about it, the more I realised I was just stemming things further and further back," Stokes stated.

"What we do is brutal-physically, mentally, and all of that. Even the stuff away from the game, the hard work you have to put in, is just getting a bit tiring these days. At thirty-five, I feel like I have to do so much physical work just to keep doing what I do out there. I had to ask myself, 'Do I have that in me? Do I have that fight in me to keep doing that?' because I know exactly what it takes to walk out there and play for this country.

"So, there are many things that have leaned me towards knowing that this is the right decision. There is the emotional side, the physical side, the mental side, and, yeah," he concluded.