England Test captain Ben Stokes suffers facial injury after being hit by ball

LONDON: England Test captain Ben Stokes has suffered a severe facial injury after being struck by a cricket ball.

The 34-year-old all-rounder posted a picture on Instagram showing his right eye heavily swollen and bruised, a graze on his cheek and lip, and a bandage stuffed in his nose.

“You should see the state of the cricket ball,” read Stokes’ caption of the picture, alongside a laughing face emoji.

Stokes is back in England following a woeful Ashes tour, which ended with a 4-1 series loss to Australia last month.

Although Stokes has made it clear he wants to continue to captain the red-ball side, his position remains uncertain amid an England and Wales Cricket Board review.

England coach Brendon McCullum has labelled some of the ensuing fall-out from the Ashes “out of order”.

Stokes is no longer a member of England’s white-ball set-up and won’t feature in the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka that starts this weekend.

He could next play for Durham in the early rounds of the County Championship before England begins its home Test season against New Zealand at Lord’s on June 4 -- Stokes’s 35th birthday. Agencies

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