‘My body is nowhere near ready’ – Ben Stokes on his knee surgery update ahead of IND vs ENG First Test Match

The English cricket team test captain Ben Stokes recently gave exclusive updates about his knee injury. Stocks underwent knee surgery and kept himself away from competitive bowling in international cricket for quite a long. Even though he has recovered and has been playing international cricket for England, the all-rounder player has only performed as a batsman. 

Ahead of the first test match in Hyderabad of England’s tour of India, Stokes recalled that the last ball he bowled was at the Lord’s during the Ashes, and admitted that his body is not fully recovered to be prepared for competitive bowling in international cricket. The English captain will therefore be seen portray the role of a batsman for England in the five-match test series. 

Ben Stokes on his injury updates before the first Test in  Hyderabad 

“As I said before, bowling is such an unnatural thing for the body to go through that it’s not going to be a case of right, I’m good now, straight back into bowling. Remember the last ball I bowled was actually in the Ashes at Lord’s. So my body is nowhere near ready to even be thinking about competitive bowling at the moment,”

“But if I get to a stage in this tour where we can start building myself back up to bowling, then hopefully by the summer, that’s where I’ve earmarked as playing a full role as I want to be doing,” he added.

Stokes further discussed, “Once we got to Abu Dhabi it was a good time to be pressing things on a bit, and start pushing myself. Seeing how I was reacting, how I was waking up each day, how I was getting through long hard sessions, three or four different things through the day.” 

England’s squad for Test Matches: England Test squad: Ben Stokes (C), James Anderson, Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Jonny Bairstow, Shoib Bashir, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ben Foakes (Wk), Dan Lawrence, Tom Hartley, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Mark Wood.

Full Test Schedule for England’s Tour of India