Ben Stokes suffered an injury scare on day four of the first Test against New Zealand after aborting a spell with the ball midway through his fifth over.England’s Test captain opened the bowling with himself on Sunday in Christchurch, with his side trailing by four runs but needing just four second-innings wickets. Despite looking uninhibited for his first four overs from the Botanical Gardens End, he could not complete his fifth, stepping away after three deliveries. Overall, his 19.3 overs in the match were the most he has bowled in a Test since December 2022, when he sent down 27 overs against Pakistan at Rawalpindi.It appeared to be a precautionary move, and is understood to have been due to stiffness in his lower back. Stokes decided not to risk doing further damage, with Gus Atkinson brought in to complete the over, Stokes remained on the field through to lunch. New Zealand were bowled out for 254, with Brydon Carse taking 6 for 42 for 10 wickets in the match, leaving England a modest chase of 104 for victory at Hagley Oval.It is understood that the injury is unlikely to affect his availability for the second Test, which starts in Wellington on Friday.Last November, Stokes underwent an operation on his left knee to fix a long-term issue that had prevented him bowling at full tilt for the previous two years. He returned to bowling ahead of the schedule in March, against India at Dharamshala, dismissing Rohit Sharma with his very first delivery.He stepped up his workload with Durham in the County Championship after opting out of selection for the T20 World Cup. The decision allowed him to operate as a full allrounder in the West Indies series at the start of the summer, with 49 overs and five dismissals taking him past 200 wickets in his Test career.However, he tore his left hamstring while playing in the Hundred, which forced him to miss the three-match series with Sri Lanka, and subsequently the first Test in Pakistan. He did not look himself, letting his frustrations get the better of him and under-performing as a player and captain.He subsequently apologised to the squad in Queenstown for leaving them “treading on eggshells” because of his mood, a result of over-exerting himself physically and mentally over a prolonged period in a bitd to regain fitness.Speaking ahead of the first Test against New Zealand, Stokes said he was now “good as gold” and “completely over” the hamstring injury: “The amount of physical work that I put my body through over that nine, ten-week period definitely had its toll, probably over my whole body…I’m completely over the injury and ready to go again.”But he also confirmed that he had skipped the IPL mega-auction in order to “look after” his body, and that he had taken the decision “to prolong my career as long as possible.”



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