{"id":569681,"date":"2026-03-28T09:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T09:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/569681\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T09:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T09:26:08","slug":"ben-stokes-england-captains-return-delayed-by-recovery-from-cheek-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/569681\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Stokes: England captain’s return delayed by recovery from cheek injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stokes has not played since the end of England’s dismal Ashes defeat. He sustained an adductor injury<\/a> on the penultimate day of the series in Sydney and was severely hampered.<\/p>\n

Stokes was expected to feature along with many England players in the early rounds of the County Championship amid competition for places in the Test XI.<\/p>\n

He has been retained as captain despite the 4-1 Ashes loss, while coach Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key have also been kept on in their roles.<\/p>\n

After those decisions were confirmed this week, Stokes said<\/a> the past three months have been “the hardest period” of his England captaincy, and backed the current regime to take the team forward.<\/p>\n

“He has been training so hard to be ready,” Campbell said.<\/p>\n

“He has a lot to prove. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know the Ashes didn’t go so well and he is a proud man who wants England to be the best team in the world. <\/p>\n

“He, as a professional, is working at getting right and ready to go.”<\/p>\n

Campbell also revealed Stokes plans to play for his county in the One-Day Cup this summer.<\/p>\n

The 50-over competition is played alongside The Hundred, with counties often fielding second-string sides.<\/p>\n

Stokes has not played in the 50-over format since the 2023 World Cup in India and has not featured in the competition for Durham since 2014.<\/p>\n

But with Stokes having opted out of The Hundred and not currently in England’s white-ball sides, the One-Day Cup would provide him with some cricket between England’s Test series.<\/p>\n

The series against New Zealand ends in late June and a three-Test content against Pakistan begins on 19 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stokes has not played since the end of England’s dismal Ashes defeat. He sustained an adductor injury on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-569681","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\/569681","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=569681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}