{"id":503008,"date":"2026-06-20T20:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T20:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/503008\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T20:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T20:30:08","slug":"yeah-weve-missed-him-england-hurt-by-loss-of-ben-stokes-admits-josh-tongue-england-v-new-zealand-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/503008\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Yeah, we\u2019ve missed him\u2019: England hurt by loss of Ben Stokes, admits Josh Tongue | England v New Zealand 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Tongue admitted England have missed the influence of Ben Stokes after a day in which they crumbled to the brink of defeat<\/a> in the second Test against New Zealand at the Oval. While they were doing so the team\u2019s full-time captain, forced out of international duty for disciplinary reasons, was 275 miles north at Chester-le-Street, scoring a swashbuckling 95 for Durham<\/a> in the County Championship.<\/p>\n

England ended the fourth day on 182 for five, a distant 281 from victory, after the tourists scored 362 in their second innings. The home side have worked this week under the interim captaincy of Joe Root, on whose back their slender hopes once again lie, after he became the second player in Test history to pass 14,000 career runs on his way to an unbeaten 75,<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we\u2019ve missed him,\u201d Tongue said of Stokes. \u201cHe\u2019s an unbelievable player. Obviously I made my debut when he was captain, so I\u2019ve got huge respect for Stokesy and it\u2019s always nice seeing him get some runs as well. But obviously we\u2019ve got a lot of leaders in our team. Rooty has stepped up as captain, he\u2019s obviously an unbelievable player and an unbelievable leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

While admitting England have been weakened by Stokes\u2019s absence, Tongue had nothing but praise for his stand-in, even if Root\u2019s second stint in charge seems unlikely to be a successful one. It now appears likely to end after this Test, with the England & Wales Cricket<\/a> Board\u2019s investigation into the curfew breach that forced Stokes and Gus Atkinson out of it apparently close to a conclusion that will allow their return for the third game at Trent Bridge.<\/p>\n

Ben Stokes on his way to 95 for Durham against Northamptonshire. Photograph: Andy Kearns\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s an unbelievable player,\u201d the 28-year-old said of Root. \u201cI\u2019ve watched him for many years now and it\u2019s a massive honour to be in the same changing room as him. As captain this week he\u2019s been unbelievable with me, making sure my plans are clear before bowling \u2013 and he did that with every other bowler as well. He\u2019s been very positive, in terms of the debriefs that we have at the end of days, and the days leading into the game as well, having our little plans and stuff and just making sure we\u2019re clear as bowlers going into each day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day started with Henry Nicholls, who replaced Kane Williamson at No 3 for this game after the latter\u2019s unexpected retirement, adding just two to his overnight total of 119 before he was caught at slip off Jofra Archer. \u201cNo one\u2019s going to replace Kane. He\u2019s an incredible player, an incredible person, and I\u2019ve been lucky enough to play a lot of my career with him,\u201d he said. \u201cSo there were certainly mixed emotions coming in to that No 3 spot. But any time you play you\u2019ve got a role, and for me I was just trying to do that as well as I could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the Kiwis are on the verge of winning what would be only their third Test in this country in 18 attempts since the start of 2000, they will not allow any triumphalism to set in while England\u2019s stand-in captain remains at the crease. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve got someone like Joe Root out there, his class and everything that comes with him, he\u2019s going to be the big wicket,\u201d Nicholls said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a lot of effort. It\u2019s Test cricket. It\u2019s been four hard days and we\u2019re expecting the same again tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Tongue admitted England have missed the influence of Ben Stokes after a day in which they crumbled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-503008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}