{"id":33221,"date":"2025-07-30T19:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T19:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/33221\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T19:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T19:54:08","slug":"ben-stokes-ruled-out-of-crunch-fifth-test-with-india-the-risk-was-way-too-high-england-cricket-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/33221\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Stokes ruled out of crunch fifth Test with India: \u2018The risk was way too high\u2019 | England cricket team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Stokes has been ruled out of the final Test match of England\u2019s summer with a grade-three muscle tear in his shoulder, aggravated during the drawn fourth game against India<\/a> at Old Trafford. Ollie Pope will captain the side in his absence as England seek to defend their 2-1 lead and complete a series victory.<\/p>\n

Recovery from a muscle injury of such severity is estimated to take between six and 10 weeks, though England\u2019s medical team have estimated Stokes\u2019s likely absence towards the lower end of that range.<\/p>\n

The team are due to arrive in Australia for the start of their Ashes preparations in just over 14 weeks, with their captain optimistic that he will have fully recovered in time for a potentially career-defining series.<\/p>\n

But the injury leaves Stokes in a similar position to last year, when a grade-three hamstring tear sustained in August left him racing to recover in time for England\u2019s first Test of the winter, in Pakistan, two months later. On that occasion he failed to hit his deadline, playing only the last two games of the series and bowling in one of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took as long as we could to make the decision,\u201d Stokes said. \u201cI\u00a0came down [to the Oval] this morning to give myself every chance just to play as a batter \u2013 bowling was ruled out as soon as we got the scan results.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those where weighing up the risk and reward: the risk was way too high. So I\u2019ll start rehabbing now and focus on what we\u2019ve got coming up in the winter. Once this series was done I was feet up anyway, so it doesn\u2019t make too much difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the last two games of the series separated by only four days, just one of the specialist bowlers involved in Manchester has been picked to play again. Chris Woakes remains but Jofra Archer<\/a> and Brydon Carse are rested while the spinner Liam Dawson drops out. The Surrey seamers Gus Atkinson and Jamie Overton come into the side at their home ground alongside Nottinghamshire\u2019s Josh Tongue, while Stokes has been replaced by Jacob Bethell, who will bat at No 6 and, alongside Joe Root, offer a spin option.<\/p>\n

Quick GuideEngland v India: teams for fifth TestShow<\/p>\n

England (confirmed): Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (c), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jacob Bethell, Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Jamie Overton, Josh Tongue.<\/p>\n

India (possible): Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Shardul Thakur, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way the Oval generally plays, the seamers are the ones who take your wickets,\u201d Stokes said. \u201cWe felt we had to have four seamers \u2013 this [wicket] looks like it has a lot more live grass than the other wickets we\u2019ve played on, so I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if there\u2019s a lot more assistance there for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve still got a team of 11 match-winners. One person doesn\u2019t win you a game. Just because I\u2019m playing or I\u2019m not playing doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re going to win or lose. This is an opportunity for 11 different people to put their hand up and hopefully win a game for England.\u201d<\/p>\n

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India are yet to announce their team but are certain to be without their injured vice-captain, Rishabh Pant. Jasprit Bumrah, whose speeds and results have declined across the three games he has played, is unlikely to be selected even if Shubman Gill, the India captain, left open the possibility of him being pushed through a fourth Test. \u201cWe\u2019re going to take a decision tomorrow,\u201d Gill said. \u201cThe wicket looks pretty green, so we\u2019ll see how that turns out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gill insisted that relationships between the two teams have not been impacted by a series of controversies over the past \u00adfortnight. This started with accusations of time-wasting <\/a>and unnecessary hostility at Lord\u2019s in the third game continuing as the fourth Test drifted to a draw when England wanted to end the game<\/a> but India demanded to play on until Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar had completed centuries. The acrimony continued with an argument between the India coach, Gautam Gambhir, and the Oval\u2019s head groundkeeper, Lee Fortis<\/a>, on Tuesday, an incident Gill described as \u201cabsolutely unnecessary\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the relation is fantastic,\u201d Gill said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re on the field you\u2019re trying to win a game, and both teams have been very competitive, and sometimes in the heat of the moment you do or say things that you might not [otherwise] do. But I think once the match is over there is mutual respect between both the teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

England\u2019s behaviour towards the end of the game at Old Trafford has been widely criticised but Stokes said he had \u201cno regrets\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s a very easy thing to comment on when you\u2019ve not been out on the field for 250 overs,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were right to offer the handshake, they were also right to say: \u2018No, we want our hundreds.\u2019 We\u2019re over it. I think India are over it. Let\u2019s try our best not to focus too much on a 20-minute period of cricket when it\u2019s been such a good series so far.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Stokes has been ruled out of the final Test match of England\u2019s summer with a grade-three muscle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-33221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}