BEN STOKES will make his first appearance at Chester-le-Street for two years when Durham begin their Vitality County Championship match against Somerset this morning.

Stokes made his seasonal debut in last week’s defeat to Lancashire in Blackpool, and has been named in a 14-man squad for the home game with Somerset.

The all-rounder dropped out of the forthcoming T20 World Cup in the West Indies and United States in order to make himself available for County Championship action as part of his preparation for this summer’s Test series.

His last outing at Seat Unique Riverside came against Glamorgan in May 2022, and he is part of a Durham squad that features Ben McKinney for the first time this season. Daniel Hogg also returns to the squad.

“England want their best players fit, and world cricket wants to see them up and running,” said Durham head coach Ryan Campbell. “So, it was lovely to have Ben Stokes back last week - he’s one of the greats of world cricket.

“The group loves having him around, and he loves being around here. We all know that one arm for Ben Stokes bleeds English colours, but if the other arm gets cut, I’m telling you it’s Durham colours.”

Stokes was unable to prevent Durham suffering their first defeat of the season against Lancashire, with the loss seeing them drop to seventh place in the Division One table.

This week’s opponents, Somerset, are second in the table, having claimed an eight-wicket victory over Kent in their most recent game.

“It’s been a pretty laid-back approach to training this week,” said Campbell. “There’s been a lot of cricket going on these first couple of months and I don’t think you need to reinvent the wheel. We actually gave the lads another day off just to chill out and relax.

“The Lancashire result was a disappointing result, but a very good game of cricket. Of course, there is a lot of, “If only this, if only that, what if this happened’.

“We were never going to go a whole season without losing a game. You’re never going to go a whole year ever without losing a game because the way we play and the way we want to play, we’re going to have to put games on the line.

“We didn’t have that opportunity because we played poorly at times on the first few days, but looking back at it, we had no right to make 415 on the final day, the wicket was a snake pit at times.”