“We had planned for him to return to LV Insurance County Championship cricket = early May and although he feels tender in his knee, that plan remains the same after the scan”; the ECB has provided an update on Ben Stokes
Ben Stokes has been cleared to play for Durham in May
Ben Stokes is set to return to action for Durham in the county championship next month after a scan revealed no new damage to his left knee.
The England vice-captain suffered knee problems during the tour of the West Indies, when Joe Root’s side fell to a Test series defeat after a disappointing loss in Grenada.
But Stokes is still scheduled to appear in his county in May after checks confirmed he had not sustained a new injury.
A statement from the ECB read: “Ben had a scan done on his left knee which revealed nothing new.
“We had planned for him to return to the LV=Insurance county cricket championship in early May and although he feels tender in his knee, that plan remains the same after the scan.
“We will continue to manage it together with Durham.”
The 30-year-old all-rounder will test his fitness ahead of another packed summer international schedule, starting against New Zealand in June.
England fell to a 10-wicket loss against the West Indies in the third decider last month, with Stokes admitting the team needed to better deal with a high-pressure period of the match.
“I said in the locker room after the last game, unfortunately all the hard work we put into the first two games is going to be forgotten because of how this last game has gone, and that’s the way sports go,” Stokes said in 4C’s around the wicket podcast.
“It’s what people focus on, but I think what we need to do is obviously play a little bit more with the man than the situation.”
“It’s something we’ve all been guilty of, even with the ball and with the bat, sometimes when we’re in critical situations we can be a little guilty of playing the situation instead of playing the man.”
“I think that’s something that this whole group can take forward, really break it down a lot simpler and just say ‘okay, it’s me against you’ instead of me against the whole situation of this whole game.”
