SEDDON PARK — On a day when New Zealand threatened to make this latest chapter of the Bazball blockbuster boring and utterly irrelevant, England found a way to inject drama into proceedings. Unfortunately, the source of it was a recurrence of captain Ben Stokes’ hamstring injury.

Stokes pulled up delivering the second ball of his 13th over in New Zealand’s second innings – and his 37th of the match, his biggest workload in a single match in two and a half years.

By this stage the hosts had taken their lead past 400. Having come into this third Test with the series already wrapped up following wins in Christchurch and Wellington, this contest had become the deadest of dead rubbers from an English perspective.

Despite suffering a flogging from the home batters on this rain-delayed third day and heading for what will surely be an inevitable defeat, it looked as though Stokes and his players could head home happy after winning England’s first Test series in this country for 16 years.

Now, though, this whole tour has been overshadowed by an injury to the captain that threatens to have ramifications far beyond the winter.

The grimace on Stokes’ face as he limped off clutching his left hamstring in agony told you as much. When the results of the scan he had in Hamilton on Monday evening come back they are likely to confirm England’s worst fears.

This is the same injury the 33-year-old sustained batting for Northern Superchargers in the Hundred on 11 August. He was not back in an England shirt following that tear until the second Test against Pakistan in Multan on 15 October, missing four Tests in the process.

Even then he has subsequently admitted he pushed himself too hard to get back that quickly. “I actually did physically ruin myself,” he said before the first Test of this series in Christchurch.

Given a similar timeline, Stokes is surely out of his lucrative stint with MI Cape Town in next month’s SA20 that is worth £800,000 and England’s white-ball tour of India that starts on 22 January.

Stokes has not played limited-overs cricket for England since last year’s 50-over World Cup in India. Yet it would not have been a surprise to see him brought back in the new year under the new all-format leadership of coach and co-Bazball conspirator Brendon McCullum.

If that was the plan, his chances of making a comeback in time for the start of England’s Champions Trophy campaign in Pakistan on 22 February looks doubtful. The same could be said of his whole white-ball future.

England’s next Test, against Zimbabwe in May, is five months away. But even though Stokes, whose chronic injury to his left knee had previously affected his bowling before surgery in late 2023, will be back for that, how much can he now trust his body to get through lung-busting spells as he has done here again in New Zealand?

Speaking on the eve of this final Test, he admitted: “I’m 33 now. Look back at 2018 to ’21 – that was where everything was flying and I didn’t have many troubles with my body.

“I have to work so much harder on the physical side of the job to allow me to go out and do my job but I got a good amount of overs in during the last two games and I am more confident about getting through a lot of spells in a day.

“As you get older you think about your body a bit more but I work harder because I have to.”

The 23 overs he got through on day one in Hamilton were the most he had ever bowled on a single day during his 11-year Test career. His 66.3 overs on this tour are the most he has bowled in a series as captain.

Paul Collingwood earlier this week praised the way he has taken to that workload, saying: “It’s great he’s got his body back into a place that he can bowl as many overs as he feels he needs to. It’s a huge positive for us moving forward.”

What happened at 3.15pm on Monday at Seddon Park looks like a huge blow to the ambitions of this England team as they look ahead to a huge home series against India next summer and an even bigger Ashes campaign in Australia the following winter.

As footballer Michael Owen has admitted, once you tear a hamstring you are never the same player again because of the psychological impact and the physical risk that your worst fears will come true.

“I was petrified of running into a channel,” the former England striker said in 2018. “I just knew I was going to tear a muscle. The worst thing about it is your instinct is to do what you have done all your life but you start thinking: ‘Oh no, don’t.’”

What happens if Stokes pulls up during the Ashes? What can be done to prevent it? As hard as he works on his fitness, some things just cannot be fixed. Does he now have to resign himself to being a shock bowler who can only be used in a limited number of short, sharp spells? Is even that possible?

England cannot risk losing him as a captain or a batter. But if he is unable to be a proper all-rounder, it changes the whole balance of this team. Without him, they probably have to pick an extra bowler – bad news for someone like Ollie Pope, his vice-captain who stood in for him again on the field in Hamilton, and possibly Joe Root, who might be asked to bat at the No 3 position he so dislikes. It’s a debate for another day but this complicates things.

It really is a cruel blow for a player who has become the victim of his own selflessness. Given the situation of the match and the series, there was no need for Stokes to put his body on the line. But it is this attitude, that of an ultra-competitive born winner, that means he cannot find the off switch in situations like this.

It’s an attitude that means he can pull off miracles such as the one that won England an epic Ashes Test at Headingley in 2019.

The risk in Hamilton was obvious, the potential reward minimal. But this is what makes Stokes such a special player.