{"id":148606,"date":"2026-03-29T05:16:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T10:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=148606"},"modified":"2026-03-29T05:16:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T10:46:22","slug":"england-captain-ben-stokes-to-miss-start-of-country-cricket-season-could-return-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=148606","title":{"rendered":"England captain Ben Stokes to miss start of country cricket season, could return in May"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"content-body-70796331\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">England captain Ben Stokes\u2019 recovery from a broken cheekbone will keep him sidelined for the start of the county cricket season.<\/p>\n<p>The 34-year-old Durham star was was hit by a ball during a training session with academy players early last month, and he had surgery soon afterward.<\/p>\n<p>Stokes has not played since the final game of England\u2019s 4-1 Ashes loss in Australia in January.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019ll miss the Durham\u2019s County Championship opener against Kent next week.<\/p>\n<p><b>ALSO READ | <a href=\"https:\/\/sportstar.thehindu.com\/cricket\/ben-stokes-reaction-on-ashes-loss-scrutiny-vows-for-comeback-england-cricket-team-news\/article70778217.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Stokes eager to lead England recovery after \u2018hardest period of captaincy\u2019<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p>The all-rounder could return for matches against Worcestershire in early May, Durham coach Ryan Campbell said.<\/p>\n<p>England\u2019s first summer Test match is against New Zealand beginning June 4.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the England and Wales Cricket Board announced it is sticking with the current leadership following its review of the Ashes tour.<\/p>\n<p>Managing director Rob Key, coach Brendon McCullum and Stokes as captain kept their jobs after England lost the Ashes in 11 days with two games to spare.<\/p>\n<p class=\"publish-time\" id=\"end-of-article\">Published on Mar 28, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/sportstar.thehindu.com\/cricket\/ben-stokes-injury-news-update-return-date-england-county-cricket-season-durham\/article70796331.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>England captain Ben Stokes\u2019 recovery from a broken cheekbone will keep him sidelined for the start of the county cricket season. The 34-year-old Durham star was was hit by a ball during a training session with academy players early last month, and he had surgery soon afterward. Stokes has not played since the final game&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":148607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/New_Zealand_England_Cricket_46174.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgnRh4-CES","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=148606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/148607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=148606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=148606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=148606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}