Ben Stokes Refers To Chelsea Legend John Terry While Talking About ‘Injury-Marred’ IPL Season

England Test captain Ben Stokes, who missed a chunk of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 season with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) due to injury concerns, believes he played the ‘John Terry’ role in Chennai’s IPL win this season. “I played a little bit of a John Terry role winning the IPL,” Stokes jokingly said during his interaction with the media at Lord’s. The CSK star referred to Chelsea legend John Terry while talking about his injury-marred IPL season as Terry had famously lifted the Champions League Trophy in 2012 while donning the Chelsea kit despite missing the final against Bayern Munich through suspension.

Chennai Super Kings acquired Stokes for a whopping NR 16.25 crore for his services in IPL but the all-rounder could play just two games for the franchise due to a toe injury. Stokes flew back to UK just before the Playoffs began and watched Chennai’s historic triumph against Gujarat on his phone in a Kensington bar.

Stokes said he has limited his bowling in Test cricket as he has a finite number of overs left in his career.

“Before I didn’t have to worry about that, I could just bowl and bowl and bowl and turn up pretty fresh. Now I’m probably not able to do that, so in-between games is probably the most important bit of managing anything correctly.” Stokes was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

“The thing about me is that I don’t need much bowling for the rest of my body to tick over. I can have quite a lot of time off and then build up quite quickly. It’s not doom and gloom if I do or don’t bowl in this game.”

Stokes said his return from the IPL gave him time to focus on his training camp.

“I think I would much rather have been playing, I’ve then seen that as an opportunity to train as opposed to playing and then topping yourself up as the tournament goes along.”

“Once you get into the tournament it’s like play, travel, all that kind of stuff. So, I was actually able to turn a disappointing situation into a positive one because I was able to concentrate on properly being able to train, whether that be technical stuff with the bat or fitness stuff, stuff in the gym and being able to concentrate on something else.” Stokes further added.