England captain Ben Stokes has been ruled out of the fifth Test with a torn shoulder muscle, and his deputy Ollie Pope will stand in for him against India at the Oval. Stokes has bowled 140 overs across four Tests, the most he has in a single series in his entire career. He was fairly confident he would turn up for the final game, despite showing signs of discomfort while bowling on the last day of the fourth Test, and despite scans revealing a significant tear in his muscle.
Even if Stokes had played, he was expected to bat only. That was the hope he carried to the ground on Wednesday. However, English head coach Brendan McCullum and the medical team decided against risking his fitness for one game.
While England have not revealed the details of his injury, it is understood he has a grade-three tear in his right shoulder, which will take at least six weeks to recover. With his next assignment being the Ashes in November, he has plenty of time to rest and recover.
“The risk was way too high for damaging this any further than it currently is,” Stokes said. “It’s obviously very, very disappointing.”
Besides Stokes’ exclusion, England have benched Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse as well. Carse has played all four Test games so far, while Archer featured in two back-to-back Tests after his four-year absence from competitive cricket, and so the pair was rested as part of their workload management.
In the absence of the three senior bowlers, Chris Woakes, who will be the only bowler to play all five games this series, will lead a weakened bowling attack including the returning Josh Tongue, Gus Atkinson, and Jamie Overton. Tongue played the first two games before returning to the bench to make way for Archer. Overton and Atkinson, on the other hand, will play their first game of the series. Overton has played only one Test before this, which was his debut against New Zealand in 2022.
This means the hosts will go in with a four-headed pace attack and no specialist spinner, with their only spin options being part-timers Bethell and Joe Root. Stokes seemed pretty content with that, given Oval’s history of giving pacers the edge. The surface had a generous covering of green a day out from the Test.
“The Oval generally plays that it’s your seamers who take the wickets,” Stokes said. “We felt that, here, that gives you the best chance of winning the game. The way it’s played here through the year in the Championship as well: it’s looked very similar to this, and played like that. There’s a bit of intel there, and we wanted to give ourselves four seamers.”
The fourth change is the inclusion of Jacob Bethell, who hadn’t had a chance to play for England since his debut Test series versus New Zealand, where he scored a staggering 260 runs across six innings. He is likely to slot in at No. 6, replacing Stokes.
“Being the type of player that he is, where he plays all three formats, it probably allows him to be a bit more versatile with where he bats in the order,” Stokes said of Bethell on the eve of the fifth Test. “I’m very confident in his ability. He’s a quality player.”
England will, however, miss Stokes sorely, who has bowled incredibly throughout the series. He also scored a century at Old Trafford, which was his first since 2023. Lately, injuries have been a major part of his career, especially with bowling, forcing him to play as a specialist batter in 6 out of 13 Test matches last year. He bowled 130.1 overs last year, and only 38 the year before. But despite his vigilance, he couldn’t escape injuries. Similar is what he thinks about the recent one.
“When I’m out on the field, I play to win and give everything I possibly can,” he said. “If I feel there’s a moment in a game where I need to put everything I’m feeling aside, I’ll do that because of how much this team means to me, how much playing for England means to me, how much winning means to me.
“It was risk-reward. I’ll always try to push myself as much as I possibly can. There’s absolutely nothing I could have done [differently] before. Being a professional sportsman, injuries are part of this game and I can’t do anything about that.”
England’s squad for the fifth Test:
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (capt), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jacob Bethell, Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Jamie Overton, Josh Tongue
