The reason why Ben Stokes is not bowling for England in Southampton

England and India are fighting it out in Southampton in the ongoing fourth Test of the five-match series. The hosts have been bowled out for 246 in the first innings as they gave away a golden opportunity to bat big on a good pitch. The visitors have a great chance now to take the lead and bat the opposition out of the game. However, the second day saw everyone bowling for England apart from Ben Stokes.

There were concerns over his fitness issues which prompted England to bring in Moeen Ali as the fifth bowling option. Moreover, even Keaton Jennings also rolled his arm for a couple of overs before lunch on Friday. Stokes, meanwhile, is struggling with his knee injury and it seems that he won’t be able to bowl in this game. He was seen bowling in the nets earlier in the morning with a heavy strapping on his knee.

Root’s comments before the game

Joe Root, in the pre-match press conference, had also hinted in a way that Ben Stokes would play as a specialist batsman just like Jonny Bairstow. Moeen Ali was brought in for the same reason and with the way things have panned out so far, Stokes might not bowl at least in this innings. “With Ben not being 100 per cent in terms of the amount he can bowl and the balance of the side, Moeen comes in for Ollie Pope,” Root had said on the eve of the match.

To make things worse even Chris Woakes wasn’t 100 percent fit for this game and this might have prompted the hosts to play Stokes as a pure batsman. Stokes though looked confident with the bat and scored 23 runs off 79 balls before he was pinned in front of the stumps by Mohammed Shami.

India are currently 100/2 and still trail by 146 runs in the first innings. They will be hoping that the duo of Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli bat as much as they can. But Ali is getting some turn already and the things could be tricky in the second session.

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