BEN STOKES suffered gruesome facial injuries after being struck by a ball driven by an 18-year-old youth player.
Stokes was taken to hospital and later posted a selfie on Instagram showing a blackened and closed right eye, abrasions to his cheek and mouth and a dressing sticking out of his nose.
He was able to see the funny side and accompanied the post to three million followers on his @stokesy feed with the caption: “You should see the state of the cricket ball” next to a crying with laughter emoji.
The drama happened when Test captain Stokes was coaching Durham’s academy players at the county’s indoor facility.
Young batsman/wicketkeeper Robbie Bowman hammered a ball towards Stokes, who was struck on the right side of his face.
Stokes later phoned Bowman from hospital to tell him not to worry – and insisted that he was the person at fault.
Durham coach Ryan Campbell said: “Stokesy said he broke the No1 rule of being a coach in the nets – never turn your back on the batter!
“By chance, our medical team were at the ground doing simulations. Suddenly, they had a real emergency to deal with.
“Robbie hit the ball hard. Players shouted out a warning but Stokesy ended up turning his head towards the ball.
“Scottie Borthwick, his great mate, drove him to hospital and our physio went as well.
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“I’ll tell you this because Stokesy never would. He phoned Robbie Bowman from his hospital and told him not to worry.
“He’d have known that Robbie would have been beside himself but Ben said it was his fault. That sums up the sort of bloke Stokesy is.”
Stokes, 34, has suffered plenty of injuries in recent years. He tore his hamstring twice in 2024 and was not able to play in the final Test of last summer because of a shoulder injury.
He is recovering from a groin injury he suffered during the final Test of England’s 4-1 Ashes defeat.
But he has already started batting again and Campbell expects him to play several matches for Durham before England’s first Test of the summer against New Zealand at Lord’s on June 4.
Campbell added: “Ben has been looking good when batting in the nets.
“He has already indicated that he intends playing three or four county championship matches before that Test match.”
Stokes is due to fly to the UAE later this month and join the England Lions’ coaching staff under head coach Andrew Flintoff for a series of white-ball matches against Pakistan.
He will continue rehabbing his groin injury and gain further coaching experience.
Stokes is expected to go into coaching – rather than become a TV pundit – when he retires from playing.
He is contracted with England until the end of the 2027 home Ashes series and says he wants to stay as skipper despite the 4-1 defeat to Australia this winter.
