Ged Stokes, the father of New Zealand-born England cricket star Ben Stokes, has revealed he has brain cancer which is why his son pulled ou...
Ged Stokes, the father of New Zealand-born England cricket star Ben Stokes, has revealed he has brain cancer which is why his son pulled out of the Test series against Pakistan to return home to be with his family.
Ben Stokes left England after the first Test in Manchester, and is now undergoing 14-days Covid-19 enforced quarantine in New Zealand before he can join his parents in Christchurch.
Ged, a former New Zealand rugby league international, was first hospitalised while in Johannesburg in December when he required emergency surgery for a brain bleed three days before England’s first Test against South Africa.
Further medical tests on his return to New Zealand found tumours on his brain.
“So, basically brain cancer,” Ged Stokes told the New Zealand Herald in an article published Saturday.
“How that came about nobody knows but obviously I’ve had a few bangs on my head through my life so that’s probably contributed to it. It wouldn’t have helped.”
Ben Stokes, who last year played a man-of-the-match role to help England beat New Zealand in a dramatic World Cup final, said he sensed when his father collapsed in South Africa that it was something serious.
“I was carrying a knee injury in South Africa but I felt my attitude change. What’s a...
