Ben Stokes' Broken Cheekbone Pushes Durham Return to May at the Earliest

England's Captain Sidelined After Nets Session Gone Wrong

Ben Stokes has endured some bruising encounters on the cricket pitch over the years, but his latest setback did not even happen in a match. The 34-year-old England captain is still recovering from surgery on a broken cheekbone and will not be available for Durham's County Championship fixture next week as originally hoped.

The injury occurred in early February when Stokes was working in the nets with Durham's academy players. A ball struck by 18-year-old academy keeper-batter Robbie Bowman caught Stokes flush in the face, and Durham head coach Ryan Campbell later revealed it came within centimetres of hitting him in the eye. Stokes was not wearing a helmet at the time, a detail that makes you wince just reading it.

To his enormous credit, Stokes reportedly phoned young Bowman from hospital to reassure the understandably distraught teenager. Surgery followed around a week later, and Stokes has since vowed to always wear a helmet during nets sessions. Better late than never, one might say.

A Frustrating Chain of Setbacks

This is hardly the first chapter in what has been a trying few months for Stokes. England's winter was already one to forget after a bruising 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia. Stokes himself sustained a right adductor injury on the penultimate day of the series in Sydney, adding yet another entry to his well-thumbed medical file.

He is understood to have travelled to the UAE to work with England's Lions coaching team as part of his rehabilitation, though that has not been independently confirmed. What is clear is that the cheekbone fracture has thrown another spanner in the works just as he appeared to be building towards a return.

When Will We See Him Back?

The revised target is now Durham's County Championship match against Worcestershire from 8 May, with the Kent fixture at Beckenham from 15 May serving as a backup option. Either way, the priority remains getting Stokes fit and firing ahead of England's first Test of the summer against New Zealand, which begins at Lord's on 4 June.

That New Zealand series is followed later in the summer by three Tests against Pakistan starting on 19 August. There is a significant gap between those two red-ball commitments, which could open the door for Stokes to turn out in the One-Day Cup for Durham. It is believed he has not featured in that competition for the county since around 2014, and he has not played any 50-over cricket since the 2023 World Cup in India.

Bigger Questions Loom

The elephant in the room, of course, is the captaincy itself. After the Ashes disappointment, both head coach Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key have been retained in their roles, and Stokes remains at the helm. The summer ahead represents something of a reset for this England Test setup, and a fit Stokes is central to that project.

At 34, with a body that has been through more repairs than a second-hand car, managing his workload is paramount. Nobody doubts his desire or his competitive fire. The concern is whether the flesh can keep pace with the spirit. A broken cheekbone sustained in a routine nets session is a sharp reminder that cricket can bite you when you least expect it.

For now, England supporters will have to be patient. May is the target, Lord's in June is the goal, and keeping Stokes in one piece between now and then is the mission. Given his track record, nothing is ever straightforward, but writing off Ben Stokes has never been a particularly wise bet.

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