Ben Stokes

[meninblue]

33 years and played in franchisee cricket apart from the hard work of all rounder in all three formats for so long, its difficult to recover from fitness issues in this context. Hardik Pandya , Irfan Pathan as pace bowler allrounders crumbled under the workload after not playing anywhere near to Ben Stokes and more so with the impact he has had. Never easy for pace allrounders once they are in thirties. I wonder why cannot he play as specialist batsman instead and captain like he did against in test series against India in India . I guess his fielding although not as agile and top class as he was when young, is still better than par for this level. It's better to have him as experience batsman and a good fielder with captaincy experience and play rather than not have him at all because of bowling injuries.

[andy]

His hamstring wasn't a bowling injury...he did it batting...he looked fit and firing with the ball this summer

[meninblue]

His hamstring wasn't a bowling injury...he did it batting...he looked fit and firing with the ball this summer

Thanks

So i guess he will be bowling once he recovers from this.

[meninblue]

Hamstring injury again. Speiclaist pacer Gus Atkinson bowled 35 overs in 2nd test at hamilton, Brydon 30 overs, Ben bowls 36.2. More than regular bowlers inspite of having been injured recently and needing to manage workload.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yes, it's strange. I presumed Stokes was only going to be a fifth bowler.

[sussexpob]

Stokes injured again for the rest of the county season at least, and maybe for Pakistan.

I think at this point the ECB need to choose what they want; have Stokes play in the dribble and bowling but be crippled all the time, or accept at his fitness is starting to disappear and you can have a middle order bat/captain for a few years instead. By all means a few games here and there for Durham in April or May for a bit of practice, but if he's not in the T20 side internationally, then he should be nowhere near the 100 in between test series.

I know its good to have the extra bowler for balance to the side, but he's a 33 year old who can't stay fit and has missed a lot of time recently.

Car's with loads of miles on the clock that start to breakdown a lot don't tend to get better the more you drive them..... his career will be over shortly unless his fragile fitness can be managed better.

Re-upping this from August.....

[backfootpunch]

Can we win the ashes without stokes fit and bowling?

Don't think so personally.

Long term perhaps encouraging bethell to work hard on his bowling could pay off.

He could do what moeen ali did.

We would then have the freedom to play 4 seamers.

[GarlicJam]

Hamstring injury again. Speiclaist pacer Gus Atkinson bowled 35 overs in 2nd test at hamilton, Brydon 30 overs, Ben bowls 36.2. More than regular bowlers inspite of having been injured recently and needing to manage workload.

I saw (I think) a figure yesterday of Potts bowling 9 overs out of 80. With Fragile Ben bowling 4 times as much!

I see he is not out to bat yet, I assume this injury is the reason, Atkinson is in ahead of him. This would also affect their team balance for batting - not that this should make a scrap of difference in this test, but it does add to that bit of poor thinking, imo.

[alfie]

Hamstring injury again. Speiclaist pacer Gus Atkinson bowled 35 overs in 2nd test at hamilton, Brydon 30 overs, Ben bowls 36.2. More than regular bowlers inspite of having been injured recently and needing to manage workload.

I saw (I think) a figure yesterday of Potts bowling 9 overs out of 80. With Fragile Ben bowling 4 times as much!

I see he is not out to bat yet, I assume this injury is the reason, Atkinson is in ahead of him. This would also affect their team balance for batting - not that this should make a scrap of difference in this test, but it does add to that bit of poor thinking, imo.

Think you mean Atkinson with the nine overs... Potts was the most used of the pacers , reasonably enough as he hadn't played two previous matches. But certainly Stokes overdid it massively , and paid the price. Trouble is he is such a whole hearted worker for his team that when he feels OK he is always going to push the boundaries ... until he can't.

Really needs to learn to ration himself better , even if it means other , younger bowlers get flattened : at the moment they have a good pool of quicks and must be prepared to rotate them. Like backfoot , I don't think current England can compete in Australia unless Stokes is able to play a proper part with bat and ball. Just not 36 overs in a game !

[GarlicJam]

We have Josh Hazelwood return after missing the last test due to a side strain. He has injured his calf now, and is probably out for the rest of the series.

Was his calf injury caused/exacerbated by being injured already?

[meninblue]

Leading wicket taker with 17 wickets in 4 tests in series against India. Has scored 304 runs as well. Two Player of the matches.

[sussexpob]

Poor Ben has been through the wars. While apparently doing some coaching in the Durham nets, Ben was momentarily distracted by something going on elsewhere and didn't see Durham's reserve keeper smash a tracer bullet back down the wicket at him, with the ball smashing him square in the face. Stokes was then rushed to hospital, but thankfully it seems he only copped some superficial damage, even if the picture he shared of his bruised, swallow face looks pretty nasty. Ben is a lucky boy, because if that ball was a few cms closer to his eye, it could have been very serious.

In a classy move, Stokes apparently called the distraught academy youngster responsible from hospital to let him know he was ok, and to accept responsibility for it due to his own stupidity.

Wishing the skip a speed recovery.

[Arthur Crabtree]

If his injury had been a little worse, he might have got to play for Durham again.

[Durhamfootman]

there is talk that he might turn out at some point in the early CC rounds. We'll see

He plans to do more coaching work with the Lions on their white ball series next month, alongside Moeen Ali

Head coach Freddie F has quite a coaching line up under him. Alongside those two are Troy Cooley, Neil McKenzie, Sarah Taylor and Neil Killeen

[andy]

Surely he needs to turn out for Durham?! He isn't one of these cricketers who can just rock up in a test after a few months off and perform...and if he thinks he can he's crazy...his form has been toilet for ages and needs consistency