England have announced that pace-bowling all-rounder Chris Woakes will not take any further part in the series against Australia due to a chronic knee injury. The star, who played for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League this year, had a tear in his right quad during the second Test against Pakistan.

However, a statement from the English management now claims that it was caused in part by a “flare-up of a chronic knee problem.” He has been given an injection in the knee and has begun his rehabilitation and conditioning.

While no date has been set on his return, what is assured is that he will be absent from the rest of the matches against Australia and the T20Is against India. His condition will be assessed again before the start of the ODI series against India in July.

This is not the first time that Chris Woakes has had problems with fitness. Indeed, a glance at his history would confirm that this is a man that has lost many years of his career due to his body.

He had a surgery on his knee in 2015 and has had to maintain the knee problems that kept him out of the entire Champions Trophy campaign in 2017. With this, he becomes the second player after Ben Stokes to be injured after directly playing Test cricket just after returning from the IPL.

Woakes’ county club Warwickshire felt that the bowler should have played warm-up red-ball matches to ease the change in format. Unfortunately, however, that didn’t happen as England now lose their most effective ODI bowler ahead of some important matches.