Ben Stokes is losing his battle to play Test cricket again this summer with England pessimistic about his chances of making the final two matches.
The all-rounder was due to learn today the length of his recovery time from the calf injury he sustained at Old Trafford on Monday, with doubts about his involvement in the limited-overs matches at the end of the summer.
England were expected to name a 13-man squad today for the third Investec Test at Edgbaston, which starts on August 3. Further details of Stokes’s injury and his rehabilitation programme were likely to be revealed.
Standard Sport understands there are unlikely to be major surprises, with the selectors leaning towards naming the same squad as was chosen for Manchester, minus Stokes.
The choice in Birmingham will be whether to replace Stokes with another seamer — probably either Jake Ball or Steven Finn — or to play a second spinner in Adil Rashid.
Jonny Bairstow would bat at No6 while Chris Woakes’s excellent performances with bat and ball should ease the pain of Stokes’s absence.
Stokes damaged his calf after delivering the second ball of his sixth over on the final day of the Old Trafford Test, which England won by 330 runs to level the series at 1-1. He had a scan yesterday and the results were expected in the evening, though the ECB medical team delayed the announcement as they continued their assessment of the damage.
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England coach Trevor Bayliss knows the team are weaker without Stokes.
He said: “He is a big player for us who adds a lot of spark to the team. He bats, bowls and he’s a leader in the field so it is a bit of a hole.”
It is the third injury Stokes, 25, has suffered in nine months. He dislocated his shoulder attempting to take a catch in a Test against Pakistan in Sharjah last November, before damaging his knee against Sri Lanka at Headingley in May.
The Old Trafford Test was Stokes’s first since he picked up that injury in Leeds.
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Since making his Test debut in December 2013, Stokes has made three centuries — including a remarkable 258 against South Africa last winter — and claimed two five-wicket hauls. Old Trafford was his 25th Test.
