‘You should see the cricket ball’ jokes Ben Stokes after being struck in the face

Ben Stokes has sustained a significant facial injury after being struck by a cricket ball.

The England Test captain posted a picture on Instagram showing his right eye heavily swollen and bruised, a graze on his cheek and lip, and a bandage stuffed in his nose. He captioned the picture: “You should see the state of the cricket ball.”

The 34-year-old is back in England after the dismal Ashes tour, which ended with a 4-1 defeat, with question marks still hanging over his position, amid an ongoing review by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The postmortem continues with the England head coach, Brendon McCullum, having said this week that some of the fallout has been “out of order” as he prepares the squad for the T20 World Cup opener against Nepal in Mumbai on Sunday.

Stokes, meanwhile, could feature for Durham in the early County Championship rounds before England kick off their Test summer against New Zealand at Lord’s on 4 June.