Ben Stokes has fired back at Steve Harmison after the former player condemned England's preparation plans for their upcoming tour of India; Stokes underwent surgery on a long-standing left knee injury at the end of November and is working his way back to a full recovery
Friday 29 December 2023 11:35, UK
Ben Stokes has hit back at Steve Harmison's criticism of England's Test preparation for their forthcoming tour of India.
Ex-England seamer Harmison, a former Durham team-mate and close friend of Stokes, believes that arriving in India just three days before the start of a five-match series is a recipe for disaster.
He claimed the tourists would "deserve to get beaten 5-0" without spending longer acclimatising to conditions, drawing a curt response from the England captain.
Stokes replied to a video of Harmison's comments, saying: "Good job we're going to Abu Dhabi for a training camp before we go to India for even more training before that first Test then, isn't it?"
England, who lost 3-1 in their previous Indian tour on spinning pitches, do not have any warm-up fixtures scheduled but hope to tune up for the series opener on January 25 with a week-long workout in the United Arab Emirates.
Harmison suggested that approach was insufficient, telling talkSPORT: "If England go in three days before, they deserve to get beat 5-0, they really do.
"I'm an old man, that's what they'll say," he continued. "Times have changed, but preparation hasn't changed. I love this new approach, I love Ben Stokes and [head coach] Brendon McCullum. But I'm sorry, going three days before... You'd never do that for an Ashes series.
"You'd never go to Australia three days before the Gabba, so why go three days before Hyderabad? For me it stinks, it absolutely stinks."
Stokes, meanwhile, is racing to be fully fit for the first Test.
He underwent surgery on his long-standing left knee injury at the end of November and has been chronicling his rehabilitation with a sequence of videos on Instagram.
England are not expecting him to feature as a bowler but even having him available to bat pain-free would represent an improvement on recent times.
Posting from the gym on Wednesday, he wrote: "Massive progress for the week," "muscle symmetry coming back" and "finally able to get into the flexion needed for a spin on the bike, for something normally so easy it was very pleasing to be able to do [it] today."
