Birmingham, July 1 (IANS) England skipper Ben Stokes was a man of few words when asked about Jasprit Bumrah, with India’s leading pacer expected to miss the second Test beginning on Wednesday (July 2) at Edgbaston here.

After suffering a stress fracture in his back in the final Test of the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, where Bumrah wreaked havoc on the Aussie batters, Gautam Gambhir and Shubman Gill had confirmed that the spearhead will only play three out of the five Tests due to workload management.

When asked, in the pre-match conference, if England got an advantage from India’s decision to announce publicly that Bumrah will only play three games heading into the series, Stokes replied, “That’s India’s problem to deal with. I’m the captain of England. Let India decide what they want to do and what they want to say publicly.”

The England skipper has come into the English summer on the back of a long lay-off. Stokes had been out of action since tearing his left hamstring during the final Test in New Zealand in December 2024. After undergoing surgery in January, Stokes returned to take the captaincy when England hosted Zimbabwe in a four-day Test at Trent Bridge.

A previous injury in the same region, sustained while playing in The Hundred last August, had ruled out Stokes from three home Tests against Sri Lanka and one away game in Pakistan.

The England captain joked that he was a ‘shadow of his former self’ after the Headingley Test, but is ready for the second Test now.

“I feel better now than I did on Thursday and Friday. I think everyone was very tired from that week. It was a big week; we were in the field and bowled four out of five days.

“I used the three days after that game to offer absolutely nothing to the world. I was a shadow of my normal self. That just goes to show how much a five-day Test match takes out of you. I was pretty tired, but all over that now and ready to go tomorrow,” he added.

–IANS

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