Daily Times

LONDON: English cricketer Ben Stokes is to have an operation to clean out his knee cartilage and is unlikely to return to England duty until the Test series against Pakistan, British media reported on Monday.

The England & Wales cricket Board confirmed this morning that Stokes will miss the Durham Test this week and see a specialist to decide on “management plan”. It is understood Stokes will undergo surgery tomorrow after a scan on Monday morning to assess damage sustained during the first Test at Headingley.

It is a minor procedure and Stokes could be back training again within ten days or so returning to cricket within three weeks. England will then have to decide whether to bring him back for the Sri Lanka one-dayers or decide to leave him until the main Test series of the summer against Pakistan, which starts at Lord’s on July 14.

Stokes felt his knee lock while bowing in Sri Lanka’s first innings on Friday afternoon. He took the field on Saturday but hobbled around for only four overs before leaving for further treatment.  It is a big blow for his county Durham who have been using Stokes’s image in their marketing campaigns as they try to lift poor ticket sales.

Stokes has never played a Test on his home ground and with Mark Wood also injured there will not be any Durham players in the England team. The timing of the news is unfortunate with a local publicity drive starting today in the north east as Durham and the Football Association join forces. They are urging fans to go to the Emirates Durham stadium on Friday before heading to Sunderland in the evening to watch England play Australia at football.

“Fancy seeing Wayne Rooney, Joe Root, Harry Kane and Ben Stokes in the same 24 hours?,” fans are asked. Chris Woakes was called in to the England squad on Monday morning in place of Stokes. It will be a choice between Woakes and handing a debut to Nottinghamshire seamer Jake Ball.