Ben Stokes has hinted that he won’t be available for the currently-suspended Indian Premier League this year.
“We don’t know if or when the tournament will be rearranged, but as the ECB have said it could be difficult for the England boys to have a free gap,” Stokes wrote in his column for ‘Daily Mirror’.
“After this year though, I do look forward to playing a full part again at some point in the future,” Stokes wrote.
“I can’t put a date on when I’ll be back playing again, but as long as things progress as well as they have then I should hope it will be well before the three months that was first feared and more like seven, eight, or nine weeks.
“You can never know for sure how long these things will take because it is not just about the technical side of healing and getting the bone strong, there is the big issue of having confidence in it to play professional sport.”
“Having the confidence to take an instinctive catch and just sticking your hand out to stop the ball takes a bit of time and I know that won’t just return overnight, you have to build up to it,” he explained.
“It was tough to say goodbye to the guys at the Rajasthan Royals earlier than I wanted, but the subsequent suspension of the tournament means that everyone is now back early with their families as India tries to get through such a difficult time.”
