Ben Stokes shares update on knee surgery ahead of first Test against India

England red-ball skipper Ben Stokes suffered a knee injury in the last edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which made him unavailable for the majority part of the tournament. He couldn’t make a comeback for Chennai Super Kings and later joined the England camp for Ashes 2023. He faced no problem against Australia and in the ODI World Cup too but the all-rounder couldn’t ball anymore. After the end of the mega tournament in India, Stokes underwent knee surgery and is now ready to play a five-match Test series, but there are complications that the cricketer needs to take care of.

Sharing an update about his fitness, Stokes stated that he is not even close to bowling at the moment. The 32-year-old mentioned that he is working on it but may not ball against India at all. Stokes added that if everything goes alright and if his body feels alright, he might start bowling in the English summer.

“As I said before, bowling is such an unnatural thing for the body to go through that it’s not going to be a case of right, I’m good now, straight back into bowling. Remember the last ball I bowled was actually in the Ashes at Lord’s. So my body is nowhere near ready to even be thinking about competitive bowling at the moment,” Stokes was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

“But if I get to a stage in this tour where we can start building myself back up to bowling, then hopefully by the summer, that’s where I’ve earmarked as playing a full role as I want to be doing,” he added.

Stokes opens up about preparatory camp in Abu Dhabi

Ahead of the series against India, England set up a preparatory camp in Abu Dhabi, where the goal was to understand spin better. Ben Stokes revealed that he was pushing himself during the camp and had long hard sessions to get back his fitness.

“Once we got to Abu Dhabi it was a good time to be pressing things on a bit, and start pushing myself. Seeing how I was reacting, how I was waking up each day, how I was getting through long hard sessions, three or four different things through the day,” Stokes explained.