Coach Brendon McCullum is not losing sleep on whether Ben Stokes’ upcoming IPL stint will jeopardise the England captain’s participation in this year’s Ashes.

A knee issue has long bothered Stokes and he has come under pressure in some quarters to rest the joint and skip his lucrative stint in the IPL with the Chennai Super Kings from the end of the month.

McCullum, however, said the all-rounder had built a career on peaking in big moments and the Ashes against Australia in June and July would be no different.

“I... believe that the Ashes is the script that the skipper is waiting to write, so he’ll be sweet. I don’t have any concerns,” McCullum said. “I don’t think he’s jeopardising it. I know that Chennai setup, I played for that franchise, and it is excellent in looking after the players.

“He knows how to get right for the big moments. His life is that, right? When he comes back into the fold and leads us into the Ashes campaign, he’ll have the bit between his teeth and I think we’ll be all right.”

Stokes has already said he will leave the IPL early to prepare for a one-off Test against Ireland at Lord’s on June 1 and the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston, which starts on June 16.

McCullum and Stokes have led England to 10 wins in 12 Tests since taking over early last year on the back of an entertaining style of play dubbed “Bazball” after the coach’s nickname. They plan to play the Ashes in the same fashion.

“I think there’ll be tens of millions of people around the world that sat back and enjoyed that Test match (in Wellington). Now we have the opportunity to really... turn our attention to what’s going to be a pretty amazing time in the guys’ lives — an Ashes series at home.

“We’ll go into it with a lot of confidence. We know it’s not going to be easy, but I’m pretty sure we will play a very similar style of cricket... And with eight or nine months of development of that style under our belt, we should be hard to beat.”

Written with inputs from Reuters