The England cricket team will be travelling to Australia for the Ashes. However, the English camp has been plagued with injuries in recent months. On a positive note, English Test skipper Joe Root is optimistic about Ben Stokes’ availability for the first Test.

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The five-match series will commence on December 8 and the first Test will be played at the Australian fortress, the Gabba in Brisbane.

ESPNcricinfo quoted Root as saying, “Ben has been fully involved in training the last couple of days. It has been very light, we are just trying to acclimatise as best we can. He’s had a bat, a ball, taken some catches, doing his fielding work slightly separately. It looks like he’s on track and it’s really exciting. It’s managing that excitement and making sure we don’t push him too hard so he’s ready for the first game.”

The English Test skipper added, “It’s been remarkable to see how far he’s come. It looks very promising. He’s been brilliant. We’ve seen him at training, having him back amongst things is always great, so it’s really nice to have him back.”

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The last time Stokes played for England was in a white ball series against the Pakistan cricket team. Soon afterwards he chose to take a break from the game in order to improve his mental health. Recently, he had to undergo a secondary operation on his finger in order to get rid of a scar tissue.

Root thanked the Australian authorities for easing the quarantine restrictions for the English squad ahead of the Ashes.

“There are always obvious restrictions within the hotel. All we can do really is live by the guidelines that have been set out. It’s not too dissimilar to other things that we’ve experienced in the past. It’s been great, the last couple of days, that we’ve been able to get out and train and use some of the facilities, so hopefully that can continue and we can keep enjoying that, keep readying ourselves as best we can,” said Root.

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He added, “The weather is probably the hardest factor. We’ve had a big thunderstorm this afternoon which interrupted part of our training but everyone’s got into things pretty well. We’re very lucky to have been looked after like this.”