Injured Stokes faces home heartbreak
BEN STOKES is struggling to make his home Test match after being forced out of England’s pursuit of victory over Sri Lanka at Headingley.
Stokes is due to earn his commemorative cap for 25 Test appearances at his county base Chester-le-Street, but is battling to be fit after jarring his knee bowling on Friday.
He will undergo a hospital scan today and England skipper Alastair Cook said: ”We don’t know 100 per cent.
”Obviously he has got something in his knee that doesn’t feel quite right.
”It doesn’t look good for Durham at this stage – but you never know, do you?”
The Durham all-rounder surprisingly took the field for the first 20 minutes of a delayed third day following extensive early morning ice treatment from team physio Craig de Weymarn.
The 24-year-old did so following a request from Cook and stood at third slip. But he vacated his position shortly after 11.30am, in obvious discomfort.
Stokes was never going to be asked to bowl yesterday and spent the warm-up standing on the edge of the group alongside some of the backroom staff as his teammates played football. Earlier this week, a different injury prevented him bowling on the practice days in Leeds.
His heavy workload in the County Championship match against Surrey at the Kia Oval earlier this month – he sent down 54.4 overs and ignored his captain Paul Collingwood’s instructions to end his spell on several occasions – took its toll and left him with a painful callus on his left big toe.
Time is not on his side – the Second Test at Stokes’ manor begins on Friday.
Warwickshire’s Chris Woakes is the most likely man to take the all-rounder’s spot.
Last week, Woakes took three wickets and scored a match-turning hundred in the win over Notts at Trent Bridge.