Daily Star

Ben op a blow

Mcshane shines as new boys flop MORGAN TO HOME IN ON DRAGONS

- ■ by DEAN WILSON ■ ■ by JULIE STOTT by GARETH WALKER

BEN STOKES is set to miss a huge chunk of England’s summer schedule after learning he needs surgery on his broken finger.

Stokes faces up to three months out and is now on his way home from India for the procedure due to take place on Monday.

The star all-rounder could miss 14 England matches due to the injury and recovery time on a fractured left index finger sustained in the IPL.

Stokes will miss England’s entire Test series with New Zealand at the start of June as well as two white-ball series against Sri Lanka that follow.

Even the ODI and T20 series against Pakistan in July could be too soon.

Cricket chiefs will be sweating on his availabilt­y for the start of the Hundred and his Northern Supercharg­ers’ first match on July 24.

The key for England is he should be back in time for the marquee series of the summer – the five Tests against India that begin in early August.

PROMOTED Leigh look to have a long, grim campaign ahead of them after this thrashing.

John Duffy’s men have lost all three league games, plus a Challenge Cup tie, but this was arguably the worst.

They were outclassed and continuall­y gifted the Tigers easy scoring chances.

Cas have now won all

RICHARD MARSHALL is backing Salford full-back Morgan Escare to shine on his home soil.

The France star grew up in Perpignan and began his Super League career with the Dragons before winning a Grand Final at Wigan.

Now with the Red Devils, he scored twice on his debut in the Challenge Cup win over Widnes last weekend and starts today. Marshall

CASTLEFORD 52 LEIGH 16 four games this year and were well led by reigning Man of Steel Paul Mcshane, who continuall­y tormented the hapless Centurions defence.

Prop Liam Watts was the first to get the alarm bells ringing when he said: “Obviously there’ll be no crowd there or his family, but he’s from that region and wants to do well.

“I was really happy with his performanc­e last week and he’s a quality player.

“He wasn’t involved in the first two fixtures and we went another way, but he’s was allowed to charge over from 30 metres out.

Mcshane worked his magic to put both Daniel Smith and Greg Eden over, either side of a Derrell Olpherts

(inset) try.

And Cas cruised into a 34-0 half-time lead with further tries from Niall Evalds and Michael trained well, got his head down and worked hard.

“He took his opportunit­y with Dan Sarginson getting injured and offers us energy.

“He knows all about Catalans being his former club and I think he’ll be an energiser for our team.”

Marshall welcomes back key playmaker Kevin Brown from suspension and wants to see a big improvemen­t in defence from the opening

Shenton. They had Jesse Sene-lefao sin binned for a tackle on Tyrone Mccarthy but added tries through Jordan Turner, Olpherts and Jake Trueman. Leigh got late consolatio­n tries from Jordan Thompson, Ben Reynolds and Ryan Brierley. two Super League matches, when his side shipped 64 points.

He added: “I’m not happy with the amount of points we’re conceding as a group.

“We’ve spoken about our defence and it’s an area we need to improve on.

“I was happy with our attack against Widnes – we’d only scored two tries previously so to score 12 tries was really good.”

 ??  ?? IN THE KNOW: Escare
OFF THE MARK: Kevin Naiqama celebrates after scoring try No.1
IN THE KNOW: Escare OFF THE MARK: Kevin Naiqama celebrates after scoring try No.1

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