England red-ball skipper Ben Stokes will play as a specialist batter during the five-match Test series against India starting Thursday, January 25, at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad.
In an interview with ESPNcricinfo, Stokes confirmed that his body "is nowhere near ready to even be thinking about competitive bowling at the moment".
"Bowling is such an unnatural thing for the body to go through that it's not going to be a case of right, I'm good now, straight back into bowling. Remember the last ball I bowled was actually in the Ashes at Lord's. So my body is nowhere near ready to even be thinking about competitive bowling at the moment," said Stokes.
"But if I get to a stage in this tour where we can start building myself back up to bowling, then hopefully by the summer, that's where I've earmarked as playing a full role as I want to be doing," the England captain added.
Stokes, 32, feels that he has put in all the hard yards while undergoing his rehabilitation, which was needed to be battle-ready for the marquee series against India.
"I've done everything away from it that a match requires. I'd never put myself ahead of the team if I didn't think I could go out and play at a certain level. I'd never be that selfish to think of myself not performing at a certain level and what that could do to the team.
"I've done everything I needed to do to say, 'yes I'm ready to go and play a Test match for England'. I'll just have to see. I might have some long days in the field but I'm ready," he concluded.
England's Test squad:
Ben Stokes (c), James Anderson, Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Jonny Bairstow, Shoaib Bashir, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ben Foakes (wk), Dan Lawrence, Tom Hartley, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Mark Wood
