Stokes is one of just three players to have played every game since he and Brendon McCullum took over as captain and coach in the summer of 2022. One of the other two, Zak Crawley, will miss the entire series against Sri Lanka due to a finger injury, and is in a race against time to be fit to be fit for the tour of Pakistan. If Stokes was also ruled out, Joe Root would be left as the only ever-present.

Pope has only captained in one first-class game, for Surrey against Glamorgan in September 2021, while he also led Surrey in eight Vitality Blast matches earlier this season. He has been vice-captain since late 2022, but has only very briefly led England while Stokes has left the field and in increasingly-rare tour matches.

Replacing Stokes in the XI without considerably weakening England’s batting or bowling will be awkward.

England could promote Chris Woakes one position to No 7, and select Olly Stone or Matthew Potts as an extra seamer. They could also select the uncapped Jordan Cox at No 6, and accept they play one bowler down, either using just three seamers and a spinner, or dropping Shoaib Bashir and asking Root and Dan Lawrence – who is slated to open in place of Crawley – to contribute overs of spin. They could call up an all-rounder such as Sam Curran, who is in outstanding form in the Hundred but has not played a first-class match for more than a year.

Stokes has a chequered history with the Hundred, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s controversial flagship short-form tournament. He played two matches in the opening season, 2021, before taking a break from the game to manage his mental health. He did not play again until this year, when his decision to get involved was considered a boon for the tournament.

Remarkably, Stokes’s Superchargers team won the game, chasing 152 against Manchester Originals, despite effectively being 29 for three after 36 balls. The brilliant Trinidadian Nicholas Pooran smashed 66 from 33 balls to help keep them alive in the tournament, with support from Brook.