‘Stokes pushes the limit and gives England a peek into their nightmare’

Five overs, in case you’re wondering.

There have been five overs of actual cricket in the time we’ve had a row about shaking hands, a Royal Rumble on the Oval square and a national state of emergency over another part of Ben Stokes’ anatomy.

If two of those incidents are little more than storms in teacups, one is anything but. Of all the possible combinations England could have fielded for the decisive final Test against India from Thursday, the absence of Stokes did not feature high on the list of probabilities.

The announcement of the team on Wednesday was a jaw-dropping moment, mainly for the stark reality of what a Stokesless England team looks like.

The stakes are high here – a first series win against India since 2018 and first in a five-Test series against anyone in the same timeframe are up for grabs – and will be even higher in England’s following Test, in Perth in November.

If it is an unthinkable blow to lose their talisman for this game, it also leaves England peering into their worst nightmare: taking on Australia in Australia without Ben Stokes. Depending how that series goes, there is an outside chance he has played his last Test in this country.

Once again, Stokes has pushed himself beyond his limit. In 2021 it was surgery on a shattered finger, two years later an operation to sort out his left knee. There were two separate hamstring injuries in 2024, the latter requiring surgery. Now it is a grade-three muscle tear in a right shoulder he also injured playing in the Indian Premier League in 2017.

Stokes has been sensational in this series, player of the match in each of the past two Tests and probably the difference between two evenly matched teams.

The 17 wickets he has taken and 140 overs he has bowled are the most in a single series across his career. He has outbowled the great Jasprit Bumrah and regularly carried the England attack on his back.

The direct hit run out of Rishabh Pant in the third Test at Lord’s changed the course of the match that ultimately gave England their 2-1 lead. His hundred at Old Trafford was a first in two years and made him only the fourth England man to register a five-wicket haul and century in the same Test.

As far back as 2018, then-England coach Trevor Bayliss was pleading with Stokes to look after himself, particularly when it came to his maniacal training habits. Now, as a 34-year-old, Stokes has toned down the training, still there is nothing that can hold him back in the heat of battle.

Is half a Ben Stokes all of the time better than a whole Ben Stokes half of the time? It’s a moot point, simply because Stokes is incapable of reining it in.

England were in a similar situation last year, when Stokes suffered his first hamstring injury. He missed four Tests, the fourth of which was the first on the tour of Pakistan. Stokes’ effort to get fit made him insular and grumpy, eventually taking it out on the team on the field in Multan, for which he later apologised. The hope is he has learned from that experience, and will not be weighed down at the beginning of the Ashes tour.

For now, he will remain with the England team, once again led by Ollie Pope. There is a larger room in the England hotel set aside for the captain, which Stokes has not given over to Pope. That probably says plenty about who remains in charge.

Stokes is one of four changes from the Old Trafford Test, leaving an odd-looking England team. Out go the weary Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse, as well as spinner Liam Dawson, whose comeback after eight years in the wilderness lasted one match. It turns out Dawson is not the second coming of Daniel Vettori, and he is scrapping with Rehan Ahmed for a place on the Ashes flight.

In come Jacob Bethell, who has played only one red-ball match in seven months; Gus Atkinson, one club game and one second XI fixture since May; and Jamie Overton, four first-class matches since September 2023. Josh Tongue is back after being dropped for the third Test. At 36, Chris Woakes plays all five Tests.

Along with those that have been driven into the ground over the past few weeks, Mark Wood and Shoaib Bashir are on the shelf, and Matthew Potts has disappeared from the Test reckoning.

Sam Cook might have been useful on an Oval greentop, but looks to have been judged on a disappointing debut against Zimbabwe. Josh Hull played here last year and has not been seen since. Lancashire’s Luke Wood was whispered about earlier in the summer. Maybe England should knock on the Sky commentary box and ask Stuart Broad to lace his boots up.

England won three out of four matches when Pope took charge last year, though the defeat did come here against Sri Lanka, one of the worst performances in the Bazball era.

Although India are set to be without Bumrah, they have won the other Test in this series in which he did not play. They will be buoyed by their escape at Old Trafford, which captain Shubman Gill said felt like a win.

Events at the end of that fifth day have been pored over, probably because there was little excitement generated by the cricket played.

Both teams had an understandable point of view. India were within their rights to want Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar to reach centuries, while England can’t be blamed for wanting to get off at the earliest opportunity after five sessions in the field. Still, there wasn’t much sign of the humility Brendon McCullum asked for at the beginning of the summer.

Similarly, Gill accused England of acting against the spirit of cricket during the third Test at Lord’s. Quite how Gautam Gambhir’s words to Oval groundsman Lee Fortis on Tuesday fit into the spirit of cricket is unclear.

Certainly the high jinks have caught the attention of those in Australia, who have put the sandpaper down long enough to have their say on England’s morals. If such tales are catnip down under, any doubts over Stokes’ fitness will put a further spring in the baggy green step.

Stokes is respected and feared by the Australians, even though he has not been at his chest-beating best on three previous tours there. There is a now a 114-day wait to see what sort of Stokes takes the field in the first Ashes Test.

Before then, there is a series for England to win, one that would rank among their best under Stokes, albeit with the skipper unable to see it through.

What started nearly seven weeks ago comes down to this. Gill and Joe Root. Bumrah and Archer. Bashir’s finger and Pant’s toe. Stokes and no Stokes. Handshakes and handbags. What a series.