Ben Stokes admits he's 'quite lucky' to be alive after being hit in face by cricket ball

[p]All-rounder Stokes suffered a broken cheekbone after being hit by the ball during a net session while he was coaching academy players at his county side [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/durham/OSM5vpR2/"]Durham[/a] in February.[/p][p]Stokes underwent surgery and is set to play in two first-class County Championship games next month, but he revealed the incident could have been so much worse.[/p][p][b]"I copped one straight in the face,"[/b] the 34-year-old told the [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/england/UJC5mtAU/"]England[/a] and Wales Cricket Board.[/p][p][b]"Pretty nasty but, funnily, probably the best result of a bad situation, to be honest. Just a couple of inches one way or the other, I might not be here doing this interview, if I didn't turn my head round.[/b][/p][p][b]"All things considered, although I had pretty major facial surgery to sort it out, it was a bit of a mess under here (cheekbone), I've got out quite lucky. So pretty thankful for that."[/b][/p][embed guid="98d0f5d4-e04a-4007-b242-bdc70f589e9e" url="https://x.com/Cricketracker/status/2021301137446707290" social-type="twitter" /][p]He added: "Obviously it set everything back about a month, five weeks, with getting back to where I wanted to be to play at the start of the season for Durham, but just had to sort of quickly go back to the drawing board and put a plan together to get me ready to play a couple of games for Durham before the Test summer starts.[/p][p][b]"At the back end of all that now but it was a pretty scary situation. Thankfully still here and everything's all right."[/b][/p][p]Stokes is expected to be fit to lead England in the first Test of their home season against [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/new-zealand/G6PWlrQB/"]New Zealand[/a] at Lord's starting on June 4th as they look to recover from their woeful 4-1 Ashes humiliation in Australia.[/p]