The Test series ended in a fiasco for England and now Ben Stokes has revealed that he and his teammates endured sudden weight loss during the fourth and final match in Ahmedabad after a stomach illness hit the tourists before the game began.

The visitors lost by an innings and 25 runs inside three days and with that the series 1-3.

“Players are totally committed to England and I think that was emphasised last week when a few of us went down with illness that made operating in 41 degrees heat particularly taxing,” Stokes told UK’s Daily Mirror.

“I lost 5kg in a week, Dom Sibley 4kg and Jimmy Anderson 3kg among others. Jack Leach was ducking off the field in between bowling spells and spending more time than is ideal in the toilet.”

The star all-rounder, however, emphasised he wasn’t offering any excuse.

“This is in no way an excuse, because everyone was ready to play, and India and Rishabh Pant especially produced a terrific performance,” Stokes said.

The white-ball leg begins on Friday but Stokes’s “weight-loss” theory has rekindled memories of the dog-ate-my homework moments after England’s 3-0 rout in India by Mohammed Azharuddin’s team back in 1992-93.

It was an omni-fiasco, in which the disastrous show was attributed to smog, prawns, facial hair, train journeys, an Indian Airlines strike, Uzbek pilots, break-up of captain Graham Gooch’s marriage and, occasionally, England’s inability to bowl or play spin.

The excuses began after England lost by 8 wickets in the first Test at Eden Gardens, Azharuddin setting the tone with a magnificent 182. England’s then chairman of selectors Ted Dexter — whose father-in-law TC ‘Tom’ Longfield led Bengal to its first Ranji Trophy triumph in the thirties and was also a former president of CC&FC — suggested it was the local smog that had had an effect on the players.

Writing on the Test in the Guardian, the paper’s cricket correspondent David Hopps said: “Dexter will deservedly face accusations today that he is hiding behind a smogscreen, that the only air about last night was hot air, and that anybody seen choking was most likely choking with laughter.”

The pollution excuse done, Dexter turned his attention to the local food by the time England were walloped in Chennai (by an innings and 22 runs) in the second Test. It was the “dodgy prawns” that gave the team an upset stomach, was the explanation then.

And after Azharuddin’s men took the series 3-0 in the third and final Test in Bombay (another innings victory), Dexter announced he did not like the players’ scruffy appearance. “We will be looking at the whole question of facial hair,” he said when the England cricket board ordered a review of the tour.

By the time the team were back in England and their losing streak showed no signs of ending in the Ashes, Lord Ted had seemingly run out of excuses.

“We may be in the wrong sign...Venus may be in the wrong juxtaposition with somewhere else!” Dexter said after a heavy innings defeat at Lord’s.

England’s current players may indeed have suffered a weight loss, but they shouldn’t bank on the stars to pull their weight.