London, Feb 15 (IANS) England’s Test captain Ben Stokes has vowed to always wear a helmet while playing or even doing batting practice after getting hit on the face badly by the ball at the start of the month.
Stokes also questioned the tactics of the batters to not wear a helmet while facing spinners in the match.
“I never understood the no helmet when spin is bowling, I used to have throwdowns with no helmet,” Stokes wrote in a post on X. “After my accident last week and getting seriously lucky with the outcome, I’ll never not wear a helmet, cricket balls do serious damage,” he added.
Stokes was accidentally struck by a cricket ball, resulting in damage to his cheekbone, nose, and eye, when he was watching a net session for his county side, Durham.
Stokes posted a photo of his bruised face from the hospital immediately after sustaining the injury and captioned it, “You should see the state of the cricket ball.”
England’s premier all-rounder has to undergo surgery on a broken cheekbone after the incident. He informed about the surgery success through an Instagram post on February 5, showing him in a hospital bed with heavy bruising to his right eye and a small incision on his cheek.
“May not look like it… but the surgery was a success,” he wrote in the post.
Stokes is out of England’s white-ball team after the World Cup in 2023 and is not involved in their T20 squad for the ongoing T20 World Cup 2026, where England has won two matches out of three in their group stage.
Stokes is likely to make his next international appearance in the first Test of England’s home series against New Zealand in June, though he may play for Durham in the County Championship.
–IANS
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