England captain Ben Stokes confident of Ashes fitness despite shoulder injury
He was initially hopeful about lining up in Thursday's fifth Test at the Kia Oval, but scans revealed a grade three tear – the most severe category – meaning he now faces six to 10 weeks of rehabilitation.
The road back starts here 👊 pic.twitter.com/MH6xObtj7c
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 30, 2025
And while he will play nothing more than a cheerleading role in the final match a series where he has emerged as the key performer, the medical advice suggests he is confident of being back in time for what has been billed as a legacy-defining trip to Australia.
The Ashes begins in Perth on November 21, with England flying out a fortnight earlier, and he was quick to assure fans he intended to be there.
Stokes opted to take the captain's pre-match press conference in place of deputy Ollie Pope, who will lead the team on home turf with the side 2-1 ahead, and was asked directly if he expected to be ready.
'Yeah. It's six or seven weeks probably,' he said, taking an optimistic view of the prognosis.
'I'll start rehabbing now and obviously focus on what we've got coming up in the winter. It's a decent tear of one of the muscles I can't pronounce. I woke up the morning after the game and it was pretty sore so I wasn't surprised that the scan showed something.
'There was obviously a bit of emotion going in when you find out what you've done. I think you need time chatting with the medical team, Baz (head coach Brendon McCullum), and then it was just 20 minutes to myself out there in the morning, just to really be clear around the decision that we made.
'It is one of those where you're weighing up the risk-reward and the risk was way too high for damaging this any further than it currently is. I wouldn't expect to put any one of my players at risk with an injury like this. The series has taken a big toll.'
Stokes knows the ropes better than most when it comes to arduous recovery periods. The 34-year-old underwent surgery on a longstanding knee issue in late 2023 and suffered two serious hamstring tears last year.
He bounced back better than ever this summer, racking up 140 overs with the ball and facing almost 600 deliveries, but may have ultimately pushed himself beyond his body's capacity.
Yet he has no regrets about taking such a punishing workload.
'Not at all. When I'm out on the field I play to win and give everything I possibly can,' he said.
'If I feel there's a moment in a game where I need to put everything I'm feeling aside, I'll do that because that's how much this team means to me, how much playing for England means to me, how much winning means to me.
'Being a professional sportsman, injuries are part of this game and I can't do anything about that.'
Stokes' absence means a first Test appearance of the year for rising star Jacob Bethell, who turned heads in New Zealand in December but has been restricted to 12th man duties since.
Ben Stokes will miss out on the final Test of the series with a right shoulder injury ❌
And we've made four changes to our side 👇
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 30, 2025
That is one of four changes to the England XI, with Liam Dawson standing down one match into his comeback and pace pair Brydon Carse and Jofra Archer rested.
In come three fresh quicks, Gus Atkinson and Jamie Overton making their first appearances of the series at their Surrey home and Josh Tongue back after sitting out the last two games.
'We've got a team of 11 match winners. One person doesn't win you a game and just because I am playing or I'm not playing doesn't mean we're going to win or lose,' said Stokes.
'We've have seen people put in some pretty special individual performances and it's another opportunity for another 11 people to hopefully put their hand up and win a game for England.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
'England chasing history after backing themselves into a corner'
When Ollie Pope found out he was going to lead England this week, he cheekily asked Ben Stokes if he could have the captain's suite in the team hotel. Stokes probably knew he was on a hiding to nothing. This final Test against India at The Oval is the fifth time he has deputised as skipper, so Pope would also have been well aware of the biggest challenge that faces anyone who replaces Stokes as England captain: Not having Stokes the has been a gruelling series, not helped by the condensed nature of the schedule. Bodies on both sides have been have bowled almost 315 more overs than India in the series and paid through the loss of Stokes. India have had to deal with injury problems of their own. Rishabh Pant and Nitish Kumar Reddy have gone down, while Jasprit Bumrah has been limited to only three have entered the final act. England have recent form for run chases, but knocking off 374 on this Oval pitch would be truly remarkable. Starting day four on 50-0 would have been a position of promise, but the loss of Zak Crawley from the penultimate delivery of day three tipped the balance further towards India ending with a 2-2 draw. If they do, they will have won the two Tests Bumrah has missed. They have managed their resources better than England. The home side can point to their depleted stock of fast bowlers. Mark Wood and Olly Stone have missed the entire Test summer, young back-ups like Josh Hull and Sonny Baker have had stop-start Carse and Jofra Archer endured the bowlers' graveyard in the fourth Test at Old Trafford. Hindsight is glorious and, a week on, suggests it would have been wiser to save one of them for The Oval. England were going for the win that would have sealed the series and did not get it. Had they caught Ravindra Jadeja on the final day, it may have been a different story. Drops have become a recurring all the pacers England could have asked to play all five Tests against India, the task was given to Chris Woakes, the oldest man in the squad. It would have been impossible to legislate for Woakes' shoulder injury, but there is also a question of whether a Brendon McCullum non-negotiable of chasing every lost cause to the boundary should apply to a weary 36-year-old fast left Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue and Jamie Overton to shoulder the burden. Neither of the trio shirked their responsibility, delivering a lion-hearted effort on Saturday in 48.4 overs in the match and Tongue's 46 are each man's most in first-class cricket, Overton's 38 his most for three looked back to the bowler that took Test cricket by storm last year. His performance belied any worries about a lack of cricket for the previous two months and suggests he perhaps could have played at Old Trafford. He should take the new ball for the first Ashes Test in has had a bizarre game. Graham Gooch once said that playing New Zealand with the great Richard Hadlee in the team was like "facing World XI at one end and Ilford 2nd XI at the other". In the first innings at The Oval, Tongue was that in one bowler. He improved in the second and deserved his five-wicket haul, ending as England's leading wicket-taker in the series, despite only playing three Tests. Between them, Atkinson and Tongue shared 16 wickets in the fifth Test. Overton was unlucky to have three catches dropped, but did little to disprove pre-match the suspicion he was an odd if the Surrey man could not have given any more, England did not need his hit-the-deck style in conditions that called for a full length. His recent history, two first-class wickets in four matches across almost two years, did not suggest he was coming in with great the course of this summer, Overton has gone ahead of Matthew Potts and Sam Cook in the pecking order, albeit if the comparison is slightly clumsy because of their different attributes. One wonders how both Potts and Cook might have gone here. England did not see the pitch until the day before the game, by which time they were dealing with the fallout from Stokes' is centrally contracted. In the winter he played Tests against Pakistan in Multan and New Zealand in Hamilton, then disappeared. The whisper is that England have decided he is not pacey enough to be a battering ram, nor has the skills to thrive with the new so prolific in county cricket, was disappointing on Test debut against Zimbabwe in May, taking one wicket in his 31 overs. If that was his only chance to impress, he chose a bad time to have a bad game. It would be harsh if England have judged him on that England have indeed gone cool on Potts and Cook, who else could they have turned to? Ollie Robinson is blacklisted and injured anyway. Calling up Dan Worrall would have sent Australia into meltdown. A 43-year-old retired James Anderson? Perhaps Overton was the best of limited options. The managing of resources is a lesson for an Ashes series from November that will be just as relentless as this have to get their bowlers to Perth, then nurse them around Australia. Woakes is a serious doubt, Stokes is battling to be fit and Wood has had a setback in his recovery from knee surgery. England will be keeping everything crossed that Archer, Carse, Atkinson and Tongue can get through the next three months of white-ball cricket - both in this country and New Zealand in October - in Australia, England will have to balance the desire for a good start against the need to stay the course. The final three Tests are have been other Ashes pointers this week. Bar Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley, England's batters struggled against the movement they can expect to face down Root was rattled by words from Prasidh Krishna, yet will surely have to endure worse from the Australians. David Warner fired shots for his old team-mates on Saturday, following chirp from Steve Smith and Nathan will not win in Australia if they do not take their catches, so the six drops in the second innings of the fifth Test is a huge concern. One of them, by sub fielder Liam Dawson, is the sort of thing that will count against his chances of going as the second spinner. Jamie Smith looked tired behind the stumps after his first five-Test series as a keeper. Another in the heat of Australia then, England's supreme run-chasers face the challenge of pulling off their greatest will head to Australia on the back of a stunning victory, or with the regret of a missed opportunity for a series win.
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
'England should consider Brook when Stokes is out'
England should consider making Harry Brook captain if Ben Stokes suffers further time on the sidelines, according to former skipper Michael Stokes is missing the final Test against India at The Oval because of a shoulder injury, with vice-captain Ollie Pope 34-year-old's recovery is likely to take around eight weeks, before the Ashes series in Australia beginning in Brook became England's white-ball captain earlier this year, winning his first series in full-time charge against West Indies."Harry Brook, to me, looks a leader. He looks a born leader," Vaughan told the Test Match Special podcast."If Ben Stokes is injured in the future can't Pope stay as vice-captain and Harry Brook gets the leadership role?" Vaughan is regarded as one of the finest captains to have led England, masterminding the famous 2005 Ashes series win. He won 26 of his 51 Tests in charge between 2003 and added: "I look at someone like Ollie Pope, who looks a fantastic vice-captain. He is brilliant person to have next to the captain to come up with ideas. Sometimes vice-captains aren't brilliant captains."Marcus Trescothick was a magnificent vice-captain for me but you wouldn't to give him the captaincy."Pope, 27, is leading England in a Test for the fifth time. He previously stood in when Stokes had a hamstring injury last Pope, the home side face an uphill task to win the decisive fifth Test. After being set 374 to beat India, a target that would represent their second-highest successful chase in a Test, they closed the third day on Saturday, without the injured Chris Woakes, England were left relying on trio of seamers Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue and Jamie they were eventually able to dismiss India for 396 in their second innings, England were hampered by six dropped catches."It is not Ollie Pope's fault England are in this position. It is the dropped catches," said Vaughan."There were a couple of times he nipped off the field, it might have been for a comfort break, but it looked like he was going off for tactical advice."I don't know well enough and am not in the dressing room. I just want the best captain who is the best leader leading the England side. I don't think a good vice-captain will necessarily be a good captain." England's highest run chase of 378 came against India three years ago at Edgbaston. They also successfully overhauled 371 against the same opponents to win the first Test of this series at Headingley."We're pretty chilled," said Tongue. "There won't be any over-thinking about it."I got asked the same question at Headingley. I don't see why we can't chase down these runs."How we play is very positive and exciting. With the batting line-up we've got, I can't see why we can't give it a good go."
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
Tired England endure ugly case of the drops without superego Stokes in the field
Fielding is an attitude, Shane Warne would often say. To the extent it could be tempting at times to conclude Shane Warne didn't have 37 different nuggets of well-thumbed cricketing wisdom, he just said the same nugget of well-thumbed cricketing wisdom 37 times. But Warne was of course right, as he was about all cricket things, as you might expect from any self-respecting genius-level leg-spin, poker-playing, bikini-magnate-squiring wunderkind. What attitude was expressed by England's fielding on day three of this fine-margins final Test, as India batted their way to a lead of 373? What kind of vibe, aura, energy is being projected by a unit that dropped a total of six catches in India's second innings at the Oval, the most by any England team in almost 20 years? Judging by the current range of go-tos, the obvious choices range between super-cool, jocular moralising and inexplicably pissy. Maybe England were just jaded by repetition. In the absence of Chris Woakes, Ollie Pope spent almost all of the first two sessions rotating his three tall, bang-it-in right-arm quicks, in what was surely one the most jarringly samey England bowling attacks of all time, death by right arm bang-it-in. For long periods this induced a kind of dog days late-summer ennui. It was at least a chance to experience in real-time the exact meaning of of the English word 'overton', which describes a state of glazed and sated melancholy induced by watching excessive amounts of lumbering fast-medium bowled by a man in a visible black nylon under-vest. As in, by 2pm the entire Oval crowd was languishing in a state of deep Overton. It has felt at times in this Test as though Jamie Overton has been picked purely for his air of menace at on-field flashpoints, like a doorman or a bailiff's assistant. But he found some rhythm before tea and seemed to swing the ball more than anyone else. Otherwise it was tempting to wonder if Pope might opt for plan B: Harry Brook bowling lobs, with added shame-chat from the infield. 'You're going to build an unassailable third innings lead against this?' In the event the drip-drip of drops did provide a punctation to the afternoon as India progressed to 396 all out. The final list began the day before, and reads like this. 4.5 overs Yashasvi Jaiswal dropped by Brook off Gus Atkinson. Edged, second slip, travelling, burst the reverse cup. Drop rating: medium. 12.2 overs Jaiswal off Josh Tongue, dropped by Liam Dawson. Hard flat hook shot that travelled 40 yards straight on to Dawson's clavicle. Drop rating: lost it in the lights. Mild. With notes of village. 14.3 overs Sai Sudarson dropped by Zak Crawley off Overton. Third slip, wide, good height, parried. Drop rating: regulation bad. 25.3 overs Akash Deep, Crawley again, off Tongue, diving to his left, hit him on the wrist. Drop rating: oh ffs. 53.4 overs Karun Nair off Overton by Brook at second slip. Tough one, Crawley super-manning across, low out of the fingers. Drop rating: I might go home. 57.4 overs Jaiswal dropped off Overton by Ben Duckett at leg gully, fingertips, full stretch. Put there for the purpose: England's tiniest man. Drop rating: hold me, I'm cold. So … so cold. The first of Saturday's misses set the tone for what followed, spur for a thrilling nightwatchman's half century. The combined run cost of all six was 127 runs. The last of them was England's 20th of the series. Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion In between Jaiswal was given space to compile an assured century. This was defined by his super-strength square cut, which ranges from the beautifully sculpted lift, arching his body into an S and deflecting over slips and sometimes the rope; and the more violent sabre-slashing fours and twos. Deep kept him company, standing tall and clumping it like a tribute Crawley act. The last time he'd got past seven was December 2024 in Brisbane. Shubman Gill glittered briefly. His dismissal, as in the first innings, seemed to be a function of simply being too good to score runs, dangerously in form, too perfect, upright, balletic for this world. Gill was lbw playing across a straight one and reviewed because it seemed impossible he hadn't actually hit it. England stuck to the task gamely but were walloped on to the back foot by Washington Sundar's stunning 39 ball 50, Sundar taking the drop out of the equation by lifting some short stuff with the new ball into the crowd. Why did this happen? There is always talk of the 'bad seeing ground'. But this has not notably been the case here. You cannot do that, Ben Stokes! That was on a dark day at the Oval. Seemed OK. We also know that nobody wants to drop a catch. Is this helpful? Nobody wants to nick behind either, or averge 29.9 as an opener. Cricket is basically made out of things nobody wants to do. Take those away and what you have left is: no cricket. But England are less focused in the field without Stokes. That bristling ginger-bearded superego at cover does make a difference, real and intangible. There were other moments of sloppiness. Jamie Smith has had to perform a rhythmic gymnastics routine behind the stumps. Overton bowling outside off stump with five fielders on the leg side. Is the problem here a drop? Plus England look understandably tired. It is an overlooked aspect of the modern schedule that, while five Test series have always happened, players often do this now with zero cricket either side, a sudden brain-mangling burst plonked between periods of rest. The schedule is year-round. Levels of focus, intensity and load come and go. Players are rested, then hammered. Nobody really knows what the effects of this are on body, sinews and mental reserves. England took the final Indian wicket here in non-drop double fielder mode, Pope and Crawley circling together under Sundar's skied hoick, reaching up and taking it, somehow, in their combined 20 fingers. There will be a result now with two days left and England needing 324 runs to win with nine wickets remaining. By the end of Saturday those extra 127 runs felt like a product of gravity, fatigue and wear-and-tear. Also, it has to be said, collateral to a great but deeply gruelling series.
