England captain Ben Stokes on Sunday broke his silence about his availability for the fifth and final Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, to be played at The Oval from Thursday.Stokes said he had been suffering from pain in his right bicep tendon—on top of various other injuries—as he bowled only 12 overs during India’s hard-fought draw at Old Trafford.“I don’t want to eat my words, but the likelihood I won’t play is very unlikely,” said Stokes.“Mentally, I’m decent. Physically, I’ve been better.”“It’s been a pretty big workload so far in this series,” said the England captain.“It was another big week in the third Test at Lord’s, and the same again this week. Pain is just an emotion, so it’s just one of those things.“It’s my bicep tendon. It’s had a lot of workload. It’s a lot of time in the middle doing my job. It didn’t get any worse. Hopefully, it settles down and will be as good as gold for the last game.”
Stokes is the leading wicket-taker on either side in the England-India series with 17 wickets—his most successful bowling return across a 12-year Test career. The 140 overs he has bowled in the series is also the highest workload of his career.“It’s been a big five or six weeks,” he said. “I will always give everything I possibly can. I ask the guys to try to run through a brick wall for the team, and I will always try to do the same and lead by example. Bowling and being in the field is tough work, so I am pretty sore.
Poll
Will Ben Stokes play in the final Test against India?
“I think everyone is going to be pretty similar: shut it down, rest up, and give themselves the best chance of selection. I won’t hide away from the fact that it has been a tough few days, especially for the bowling unit. We like to get our team out a couple of days before, but we might have to take longer to give everyone as much time as possible to recover.“We are going in 2-1 up, but we want to put in that one last big performance. We kept saying today: one last push before one last push next week. There is a lot of hard work still to go in this series.”
