Ben Stokes has been ruled out of the final Test match of England’s summer with a grade-three muscle tear in his shoulder, aggravated during the drawn fourth game against India at Old Trafford. Ollie Pope will captain the side in his absence as England seek to defend their 2-1 lead and complete a series victory.
Recovery from a muscle injury of such severity is estimated to take between six and 10 weeks, though England’s medical team have estimated Stokes’s likely absence towards the lower end of that range.
The team are due to arrive in Australia for the start of their Ashes preparations in just over 14 weeks, with their captain optimistic that he will have fully recovered in time for a potentially career-defining series.
But the injury leaves Stokes in a similar position to last year, when a grade-three hamstring tear sustained in August left him racing to recover in time for England’s first Test of the winter, in Pakistan, two months later. On that occasion he failed to hit his deadline, playing only the last two games of the series and bowling in one of them.
“We took as long as we could to make the decision,” Stokes said. “I came down [to the Oval] this morning to give myself every chance just to play as a batter – bowling was ruled out as soon as we got the scan results.
“It’s one of those where weighing up the risk and reward: the risk was way too high. So I’ll start rehabbing now and focus on what we’ve got coming up in the winter. Once this series was done I was feet up anyway, so it doesn’t make too much difference.”
With the last two games of the series separated by only four days, just one of the specialist bowlers involved in Manchester has been picked to play again. Chris Woakes remains but Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse are rested while the spinner Liam Dawson drops out. The Surrey seamers Gus Atkinson and Jamie Overton come into the side at their home ground alongside Nottinghamshire’s Josh Tongue, while Stokes has been replaced by Jacob Bethell, who will bat at No 6 and, alongside Joe Root, offer a spin option.
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England v India: teams for fifth Test
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England (confirmed): Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (c), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jacob Bethell, Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Jamie Overton, Josh Tongue.
India (possible): Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Shardul Thakur, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna.
“The way the Oval generally plays, the seamers are the ones who take your wickets,” Stokes said. “We felt we had to have four seamers – this [wicket] looks like it has a lot more live grass than the other wickets we’ve played on, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a lot more assistance there for them.
“We’ve still got a team of 11 match-winners. One person doesn’t win you a game. Just because I’m playing or I’m not playing doesn’t mean we’re going to win or lose. This is an opportunity for 11 different people to put their hand up and hopefully win a game for England.”
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India are yet to announce their team but are certain to be without their injured vice-captain, Rishabh Pant. Jasprit Bumrah, whose speeds and results have declined across the three games he has played, is unlikely to be selected even if Shubman Gill, the India captain, left open the possibility of him being pushed through a fourth Test. “We’re going to take a decision tomorrow,” Gill said. “The wicket looks pretty green, so we’ll see how that turns out.”
Gill insisted that relationships between the two teams have not been impacted by a series of controversies over the past fortnight. This started with accusations of time-wasting and unnecessary hostility at Lord’s in the third game continuing as the fourth Test drifted to a draw when England wanted to end the game but India demanded to play on until Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar had completed centuries. The acrimony continued with an argument between the India coach, Gautam Gambhir, and the Oval’s head groundkeeper, Lee Fortis, on Tuesday, an incident Gill described as “absolutely unnecessary”.
“I think the relation is fantastic,” Gill said. “When you’re on the field you’re trying to win a game, and both teams have been very competitive, and sometimes in the heat of the moment you do or say things that you might not [otherwise] do. But I think once the match is over there is mutual respect between both the teams.”
England’s behaviour towards the end of the game at Old Trafford has been widely criticised but Stokes said he had “no regrets”. “It’s a very easy thing to comment on when you’ve not been out on the field for 250 overs,” he said. “We were right to offer the handshake, they were also right to say: ‘No, we want our hundreds.’ We’re over it. I think India are over it. Let’s try our best not to focus too much on a 20-minute period of cricket when it’s been such a good series so far.”
