England\u2019s star cricketer, Ben Stokes, a formidable adversary for New Zealand since their historic clash at Lord\u2019s in 2019, is facing uncertainty ahead of the ODI World Cup opener between the two teams in Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n
Stokes, who played a pivotal role in England\u2019s victory with his unbeaten 84 in the final, has been a thorn in New Zealand\u2019s side. His recent spectacular innings, including a remarkable 182 against the Black Caps at The Oval last month, still lingers in their memory.<\/p>\n
However, a hip concern has cast doubts over Stokes\u2019 availability for the crucial encounter. England\u2019s captain, Jos Buttler, expressed optimism, mentioning that Stokes is diligently working with the physios in hopes of a swift recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cBen has got a slight sort of niggle with his hip, but fingers crossed that that\u2019ll be good news for us. He\u2019s working hard with the physios,\u201d captain Jos Buttler said on the eve of the tournament opener.<\/p>\n
Should Stokes be unavailable on Thursday, Harry Brook might step in to bat at No.4 for England. While Brook\u2019s ODI performance hasn\u2019t been exceptional, tallying only 123 runs in six matches, England remains hopeful that he can replicate his success from Test and T20 formats in the 50-over format as well.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe all know what a fantastic player he (Brook) is,\u201d Buttler said. \u201cHe\u2019s at the start of an international career that has been outstanding in T20 cricket and in the Test format. He hasn\u2019t played loads of ODI cricket, but it\u2019s a format that should suit him perfectly. It\u2019ll allow him to bat for a long time and make big runs, and that\u2019s something he enjoys doing. He\u2019s got all the shots.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stokes is doubtful for opener\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":30169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[255,3486],"class_list":["post-7265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket","tag-ben-stokes","tag-icc-odi-world-cup-2023"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}