England all-rounder Ben Stokes on Wednesday cheekily announced his return to ODI cricket after reversing his decision to retire from the format last year. Stokes, who played a key role in England’s maiden ODI World Cup triumph in 2019, has been named in squad for the upcoming ODI series against New Zealand and the World Cup in India later this year. Post the team announcement, the Test skipper took to Twitter and wrote ‘Lol’.
Notably, The tweet was a reference to his teammate Moeen Ali, who had also made a retirement U-turn earlier this year.
Moeen had retired from Test cricket in February 2022, but came back to the format in June 2023 after receiving a text message from Stokes, who was then preparing for the Ashes series in Australia. Stokes had asked Moeen to join him for the Ashes, to which Moeen had replied with a single word: “Lol”.
Stokes had announced his ODI retirement in July 2022, citing workload and injury concerns. He has scored 2,924 runs and taken 74 wickets in 105 ODIs so far.
Stokes will join the England ODI squad for the four-match series against New Zealand, which will start on September 8. The series will serve as a warm-up for both teams ahead of the World Cup, which will begin on October 18 in India.
England’s Provisional World Cup Squad: Jos Buttler (capt), Moeen Ali, Gus Atkinson, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Reece Topley, David Willey, Mark Wood, Chris Woakes
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