LONDON (AP) — England captain Ben Stokes says any suggestion he and coach Brendon McCullum are not aligned “is a massive overstatement.”
Were there disagreements between them during their Ashes debacle in Australia? Yes.
Was it any different than normal? No.
Stokes and McCullum have been in lock step since 2022 and they crashed and burned when they lost to Australia 4-1 last winter. Both men supported the other after being humbled but the Ashes review threw up signs of tension.
Stokes wanted to play more conservatively while McCullum wanted to double down on all-out attack.
Since the Ashes, Stokes has kept a low profile. When he and McCullum kept their jobs last month following the Ashes review, he posted on social media that he was happy to continue working with McCullum and the post-Ashes period had been the hardest period of his captaincy.
The captain has used an in-house interview with the England and Wales Cricket Board to address his relationship with McCullum.
“Saying we weren't aligned, I think, is a massive overstatement,” Stokes said.
"When you're in a position of leadership along with someone else, if anyone thinks that you're always going to agree on everything then it's just impossible.
"To me, that isn't a healthy environment for sport, in particular. You need debate. You need discussions. Then you end up getting to the place you both want to end up getting to.
“As similar as me and Brendon are, we're also dissimilar in other areas as well. We agree 95% of the time on things, but those 5% things that we might have different views on, we talk about it between each other and then we end up getting to the place where we want to get to.”
Stokes hasn’t played in the County Championship since breaking his cheekbone in a freak accident in preseason training with Durham. But he's set to return in May before New Zealand arrive in June for a test series. Pakistan follow this summer, and Australia come to England in 2027.
As was recommended in the Ashes review, England's leadership will tweak what it does with the team and Stokes has welcomed it.
“I'm very confident in mine and Brendon's ability to be able to work together, because we've done it for such a long period of time now, but work together in a slightly different way,” he said.
"The main point of me and Brendon is our alignment towards winning things and making this team as good as they can be. That's always been the thing since we started. It might just look a little bit different now to how that operates — on the back of four years working together.
“Hopefully we'll still be together at the end of 2027, winning what we want to win.”
AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
FILE -England coach Brendon McCullum, left, talks with captain Ben Stokes ahead of play on day two of the second cricket test between New Zealand and England at the Basin Reserve in Wellington, New Zealand, Dec.7, 2024. (Kerry Marshall/Photosport via AP, File)
A super typhoon steadily battered a pair of remote U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean with ferocious winds and relentless rains, shredding tin roofs and forcing residents to take cover from flying tree limbs.
Super Typhoon Sinlaku pounded the Northern Mariana Islands for hours before daybreak Wednesday, slowing just to inflict more damage across the islands of Tinian and Saipan, home to nearly 50,000 people.
In the village Susupe on Saipan, resident Dong Min Lee said it was still too dangerous to head outside to thoroughly inspect for damage at daybreak Wednesday. From his apartment windows he could see a car sitting on top of two others in his building’s parking lot below. The winds also tore off part of his balcony railing.
“I hope people will take an interest and help. The damage is really huge here,” Lee said in a Facebook message.
The tropical typhoon — the strongest on Earth this year — was packing sustained winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph) when it made landfall on the islands, the National Weather Service said.
Tropical force winds and torrential rainfall also led to flash flooding on Guam, a U.S. territory to the south with several U.S. military installations and about 170,000 residents, the weather service said.
“I’m guessing anything that was made of wood and tin did not survive this,” said Glen Hunter, who grew up on Saipan and watched at least three tin roofs fly past his yard.
Hunter, who has weathered numerous typhoons, told The Associated Press this felt like the strongest yet. Rain was seeping into every crevice of his concrete home, he said.
“It was a losing battle because the rain was coming through everywhere,” he said. “Every house is just flooded with water, no matter what type of structure you’re in."
While wind gusts did slow a bit on the Mariana Islands early Wednesday and the storm started tracking to the north, the conditions did not improve right away, the weather service reported.
Ed Propst, a former lawmaker in Saipan who works in the governor’s office, said he heard “banging and clanging through the night.”
“We haven’t heard of any — knock on wood — deaths so far,” he said, attributing that to residents heeding warnings to take shelter if they weren't in a concrete home.
The monster storm slowed to a crawl as it approached the islands.
“This is not going to be an easy night for anyone across Tinian or Saipan. This is going to be a loud night,” said Landon Aydlett, a meteorologist with the weather service. Many people “will wake up to a different island,” he said during a Facebook video broadcast.
Saipan is the largest of the Northern Mariana Islands as well as its capital, known for its resorts, snorkeling and golf.
Mayor Ramon “RB” Jose Blas Camacho said late Tuesday that the heavy rain and wind around Saipan made it tough to reach people needing to be rescued.
“Objects are just flying left and right,” he said.
The worst of the storm hit during darkness and was expected to continue until at least sunrise Wednesday, the weather service said. While it’s expected to weaken slightly over the next few days, Sinlaku was crossing the islands as a Category 4 typhoon.
In Guam, where Typhoon Mawar knocked out power for days in 2023, U.S. military officials warned personnel to shelter in place. The military controls about one-third of the land on Guam, a critical hub for U.S. forces in the Pacific.
Before turning toward the Northern Marianas, the storm left significant damage to the outer islands and atolls of Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia, Aydlett said from his weather service station on Guam.
Tourism-dependent Saipan — the site of one of World War II’s bloodiest battles in the Pacific — was still recovering from 2018’s Super Typhoon Yutu when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Hunter said. The economy has yet to rebound, he said.
Yutu destroyed 85% of the Saipan campus of Northern Marianas College, said the school's president, Galvin Deleon Guerrero. The institution secured $100 million in grant funding to rebuild.
“Just as we were finally beginning to recover and rebuild, we get hit with this,” he said. “Climate change is real.”
He said he worries about people still suffering from the post-traumatic stress of Yutu.
“We are an incredibly resilient people,” he said, noting that he’s Chamorro, the Indigenous people of the Mariana Islands. “But just people we’re resilient doesn’t mean that we should be subjected to this on this frequent basis.”
President Donald Trump approved emergency disaster declarations ahead of the latest storm for Guam and the Mariana Islands. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was coordinating support across multiple agencies, dispatching nearly 100 FEMA staff as well as other personnel.
Super typhoons are the equivalent of Category 4 or 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic, with winds of at least 150 mph (240 kph). There have been more than 300 super typhoons identified over the past 80 years by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Guam.
Typhoons are “very common” in the Pacific, but the peak season is similar to the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from summer to fall, said Jason Nicholls, AccuWeather’s lead international forecaster.
“As we’ve seen this year, you can get tropical systems in the West Pacific any time of year,” Nicholls said. “But getting them in April is a little unusual.”
Associated Press writers Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.
This satellite image provided by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows super typhoon Sinlakua in the Pacific Ocean, Monday, April 13, 2026. (NOAA via AP)
