Ben Stokes to have knee surgery after ‘crap’ Cricket World Cup
Ben Stokes will undergo surgery after the World Cup in a bid to clear up a chronic knee injury but is in a tight race to be fully recovered for England’s Test tour to India.
Stokes delayed an operation in order to play in the World Cup in India, a gamble that has backfired given England’s performances, which he described on Friday as “crap”.
He will now have surgery to clear up what is thought to be chronic tendonitis in his left knee and will be out for “five, six or seven weeks”.
England leave for a pre-tour training camp in the UAE on Jan 11-12 (dates are not fully confirmed) and will not arrive in India until a couple of days before the first Test in Hyderabad on Jan 25. They will not play any warm-up matches, instead training in the gulf.
England leave the World Cup on November 12 – presuming there is no miraculous bounce into the semi-finals – and Stokes will have the procedure shortly after arriving home. He will be operated on by Andy Williams, who has treated a long line of Premier League footballers and cricketers.
Stokes has played as a specialist batsman since the Lord’s Test against Australia and only bowled 38 overs for England this year in all forms of the game.
“There was a lot of time put into deciding when to get it done. Obviously the India Test series which we start at the end of January, I should be fine to go by then,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming and I want to get back to what I’ve been doing prior to the 18 months where I’ve had this injury. It’s been a big hindrance on me and affected what I can do for the team. Obviously [bowling] is what I want to be doing. You’d hope that it means that I can get back to doing what I’ve been known for, which is playing a role as a batter, and playing a role as a bowler as well.
“We’ll just see how everything goes, see how I respond to the surgery and all the rehab as well. There’s obviously something that needs to be operated on. I’ll switch off and let Andy Williams, the surgeon, do what he does best, which is fix knees.”
Stokes put off surgery to come out of ODI retirement and play in the World Cup, tempted by one last hurrah in this format to defend the crown won in 2019. But it has backfired for the team, with Stokes averaging just 16.5, and limited his recovery time before an arduous Test series in India that will be the greatest challenge yet for the Bazball approach.
There were ten weeks between the end of the Ashes and the start of the World Cup but Stokes opted to play against New Zealand to reacquaint himself with ODI cricket (setting a new record England score when he smashed 182 at the Oval) and not to risk participation in this tournament.
There are just over nine weeks between England’s return from India and the Test series back in that country so if Stokes’s timeframe is correct he should be recovered in time. But, at 32, and after a career of pushing his body to the limits, it would only take one setback to derail his plans.
He confirmed he will stay on until the end of the World Cup rather than cut it short for his operation partly because England still have a lot to play for with qualification for the Champions Trophy requiring a minimum of two wins from their last three games. They may also not have been able to replace him in the squad because they picked him knowing he had this problem.
Stokes took over pre-match captain’s media duties from Jos Buttler, who has run out of ways to explain England’s performance, and offered a blunter assessment than anything said before as they prepared to play Australia at the Narendra Modi stadium on Saturday.
“I think the problem is that we’ve been crap. To be honest with you,” he said. “We’ve had a disastrous World Cup and there’s no point sugar-coating that because it’s the truth. But we know these last three games, for us, we’ve got a lot to play for. I think the biggest thing that we’ve got to play for is obviously the pride of what it is to put the three lions on your chest, walking out onto the field every time is a very special occasion and something that we value very highly.
“We’ve been nowhere near good enough to be able to compete in a World Cup, which has been incredibly disappointing because we know we’re so, so much better than what we’ve shown out here. And not having an answer and being able to understand as to why it’s gone wrong is very simple. That’s the answer. Because if we knew what had gone wrong, we would have been able to fix it. But unfortunately, we don’t. It’s just been one of those tournaments where, yeah, it’s just been a disaster.”
Stokes explained his decision to reject a three-year central contract recently, choosing to sign for one year instead hoping more will be on the table next year.
“I signed a one-year contract because if I signed any longer, I would be signing a blank paper where I didn’t know what was on it,” Stokes said.
“The new MoU [Memorandum of Understanding] is coming so I don’t think it’s wrong of me to not sign something where I’ve got no idea what the terms or conditions are.”
