(Cricket News) The star all-rounder for the Chennai Super Kings, Ben Stokes, has decided not to play in the 2024 Indian Premier League in order to manage his workload and fitness. The team expressed their support for Stokes’ decision in a statement posted on their website.

Sunday, November 26, is when the IPL will announce which teams will keep and release players for the 2024 season. If the Super Kings decide not to release Stokes, they will have the opportunity to keep him before the IPL 2025 mega auction.

Stokes had previously disclosed that he would be having knee surgery at the end of the World Cup, a procedure he had been putting off for some time. The timing of his return will depend on his rehabilitation.

The left knee injury that had forced Stokes to start the season as a specialist batter was partially to blame. The knee injury is long-standing, but it flared up during England’s tour of New Zealand in February of this year. Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming had stated at the time that the team would wait for Stokes to be “100% ready” before asking him to bowl.

Stokes was the most expensive buy ever made by the Super Kings in the auction leading up to the 2023 IPL season, at INR 16.25 crore.

More recently, when England played in the World Cup in India after retiring from ODIs, Stokes was among their best batsmen despite the team’s disastrous tournament run. Despite missing the first three games of the World Cup, Stokes played in six of England’s nine games and finished second in the run score behind Dawid Malan.

Stokes did not bowl during the tournament, but he scored 304 runs in his six innings, including two half-centuries and a century, culminating in a sequence of 64 (vs Australia), 108 (vs Netherlands), and 84 (vs Pakistan). His average was 50.66 and his strike rate was 89.14.

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