Ashes rival Andrew McDonald believes the Ben Stokes chapter not closed just yet, hopes for ‘fairytale’ return

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"I think the fairytale would be that he comes back out of retirement and takes on one more Ashes and builds a lot of hype on the way in," Australia's coach told radio station SEN.

"If you're looking at promoting that series, that's probably the angle that you would want, that he comes out of retirement.

"To me, he's still got a lot of good cricket left in him. It'll be a fascinating watch. I think that whoever the new head coach that comes in potentially has a conversation with him.

"We don't know why Ben left. I don't think there's been anything on the record around the definitive reason as to why. He may have just called it a day on Test cricket, and that's it, so there might be a full stop there,” he added.

"But if it ends now, he's had a wonderful career in terms of what he's brought to the game, his impact in certain innings and moments in time. It will age pretty well for him to look back on," McDonald, whose side thumped England 4-1 earlier this year in the Ashes, said.

"One of the big things from my perspective is if it's going to be your pinnacle event, what do your squad sizes look like?" McDonald said.

"We had the dilemma of what it looked like having a 15-player squad for the last World Cup, and I think New Zealand were in the same boat where we had a couple of injuries, Travis Head being the most notable one, and I think Kane Williamson and a couple of others for New Zealand, where you end up with sort of 12-13 players to select from early on in your tournament, and you're trying to carry those other players through the early rounds, and you're not able to play potentially the way that you want to play, or structure up the way that you think you need to, and in particular in countries where you in the north or the south or the east or the west, the conditions change quite significantly," he added.

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