So acute is the agitation over Ben Stokes’s fitness that even the sight of him breaking into a light trot at Chester-le-Street this week has acquired state-of-the-nation significance. Might it mean he lasts all five Tests against India this summer? Could England dare to dream of a first away triumph in an Ashes for 15 years? The Test captain’s condition is painfully precarious: he has reached the stage where he is only one misjudged run-up away from a potentially career-ending setback. How absurd, then, that in the midst of this delicate management of his battered body, he is being sized up to carry the extra baggage of leading the country’s sclerotic one-day team.
Picking battered Ben Stokes as England ODI captain is reckless act of desperation
