(Reuters) -England captain Ben Stokes suffered a left hamstring injury during the third test against New Zealand in Hamilton on Monday and will not field again for the remainder of the match, the team said.
Stokes, who pulled up clutching his thigh while bowling and left the field immediately for treatment, missed four tests after tearing the same hamstring during The Hundred in August.
The injury would be assessed further before a decision was made on whether the all-rounder would bat in England’s second innings at Seddon Park, the team said.
“He’ll have a scan this evening or tomorrow morning to try and get a better diagnosis than potentially what I can give you,” assistant coach Marcus Trescothick told reporters.
“It’s in the same hamstring that he’s had before.
“(He’s) been going so well, he’s been bowling, and playing the role that he does as an all-rounder, as captain, and we didn’t see it coming.
“But he’s pretty happy, he’s realistic about all these different things when they happen.”
England have already won the three-match series after thumping victories in the first two tests and are assured of having to chase down a world record target to sweep the series.
Stokes bowled 24 overs in New Zealand’s first innings and was two balls into his 13th over of the second when he suffered the injury — a much heavier workload than he undertook in the first two tests.
The 33-year-old also pulled up mid-over while bowling in the series opener in Christchurch and handed the ball to Gus Atkinson, although on that occasion he did stay on the field.
He said after the match that he had stopped bowling because he had not wanted to push his body unnecessarily with the test all but won.
England next play in the longest format in a one-off test against Zimbabwe in May before a five-match home series against India in July and August followed by the Ashes series in Australia at the end of the year.
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, additional reporting by Amlan Chakraborty; editing by Peter Rutherford)
