In what would be a massive setback for the Chennai Super Kings, their star all-rounder Ben Stokes has confirmed that he will miss the second half of IPL 2023 to gear up for the England's Test match against Ireland starting on June 1. The four-time IPL winners had gone all-out to rope Stokes in for a whopping INR 16.25 crore and would have ideally wanted him to stay for the entire tournament but Stokes, who is the captain of the England Test team has prioritised national duty ahead of his IPL commitments.
With the Ireland Test beginning on June 1, it is being learnt that should Chennai go on to qualify for the Playoffs, Stokes might not be available for the crunch games.
"Yes, I'll play (the Ireland Test). "I'll be making sure that I give myself enough time to get back and play that [Ireland] game," he said as quoted in a report by ESPNCricinfo.
"I'll probably get round the individuals and ask them what they want to be ready for for the Ashes, because those five games are obviously the big ones of the summer, and you've got to think about what lads want. But what if something was to happen in that game [Ireland] and we lose someone for the Ashes ... It's just one of those where you have to weigh up the options of what the individual person actually wants out of that week, versus do we really need to play that one. Because, obviously, I'm right in saying that series is bigger than that game against Ireland," he added.
It is worth highlighting that Stokes has led England to 10 wins out of 11 Test matches and has been at the centre of England's renaissance in Test match cricket along with head coach Brendon McCullum who have introduced an aggressive and positive approach to the game's longest format, being popularly known as "Bazball".
Meanwhile, it would be interesting to see how Chennai manage to first enter the final four after a forgettable season last year and then take it from there on with Stokes set to miss the important matches.
CSK Squad For IPL 2023:
MS Dhoni (captain), Ravindra Jadeja, Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Subhranshu Senapati, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Dwaine Pretorius, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Mukesh Choudhary, Matheesha Pathirana, Simarjeet Singh, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Ajinkya Rahane, Ben Stokes, Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu, Kyle Jamieson (Ruled Out, Replacement Awaited), Ajay Mandal, Bhagath Varma