Due to captain Ben Stokes’ hamstring injury, The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has removed right-arm seamer Chris Woakes from The Hundred 2024 before three-match Test against Sri Lanka. According to ESPNcricinfo reports, the veteran swing bowler was made unavailable before Birmingham Phoenix’s last two matches in The Hundred 2024.
Woakes was to play the last two group matches of the 2024 edition for Pheonix against Trent Rockets on Monday and Manchester Originals on Thursday at Edgbaston. Nevertheless, after saying that it was an issue of ‘workload management’, ECB made him unavailable for both games although England rejected any link between this withdrawal and the captain’s injury.
However, during a match between Northern Superchargers and Manchester Originals held at Old Trafford in Manchester on Sunday, he limped off the field after completing a run. Later, he was seen walking with crutches while Superchargers captain Harry Brook indicated that it did not look good since they would carry out scans to determine its full extent.
Ollie Pope is expected to captain England if Ben Stokes is sidelined by injury
In case Stokes is missing from any Test or series against Sri Lanka starting on August 21, Ollie Pope is likely to be appointed as the captain of the team. For the selectors not to leave out anyone who can miss this series due to injury problems like Zak Crawley. Consequently, they brought Jordan Cox without caps into the team.
Additionally, England has made sure that none of their frontline bowlers have played in The Hundred this year. Gus Atkinson was selected for Oval Invincibles previously, but he did not retain his spot this time around.
On the other hand, Shoaib Bashir and Mark Wood have neither signed contracts with any teams yet. Previously, England beat West Indies 3-0 and won Richards-Botham Trophy with that victory over then existing champions.
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