Ben Stokes may miss England warm-up to attend Sports Personality Awards

Ben Stokes looks set to miss England's opening warm-up match of their tour of South Africa next month, in order to attend the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards, which takes place in Aberdeen on December 15.

Stokes, who is currently in New Zealand with the England Test team, was one of six nominees for the main award, and is the bookmakers' favourite to lift the trophy after a remarkable year that was capped by his man-of-the-match-winning performance in England's World Cup final victory over New Zealand.

He also produced one of the greatest Test innings of all time against Australia at Headingley in August, scoring 135 not out to secure a thrilling one-wicket win.

Writing on Twitter after hearing of his nomination, Stokes said: "Overwhelmed by this and buzzing to be nominated. 2019 has been so good. There are so many people to thank for helping me receive this nomination. Congrats to all the other nominees. Looking forward to being in Aberdeen on the 15th."

Overwhelmed by this and buzzing to be nominated. 2019 has been so good. There are so many people to thank for helping me receive this nomination.
Congrats to all the other nominees. Looking forward to being in Aberdeen on the 15th. https://t.co/NGCUbpuON5

— Ben Stokes (@benstokes38) November 26, 2019

Stokes was the first of six nominees to be unveiled, for an award that dates back to 1954. The others were the Great Britain athletes Dina Asher-Smith and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, both of whom won gold at the recent World Championships in Doha; the Wales rugby captain Alun Wyn Jones, the formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton, and Manchester City and England's Raheem Sterling.

The award has been won on five previous occasions by a cricketer, most recently by Andrew Flintoff following his Ashes-winning heroics in 2005. Jim Laker (1956), David Steele (1975) and Ian Botham (1981) are the other cricketers to have won the public vote that honours the outstanding British sportsman of the year.

The musician Ed Sheeran revealed the nomination via a video on Twitter, having attended several England matches in the course of the summer.

"Hey Ben Stokes, you are a Sports Personality of the Year nominee, congratulations," said Sheeran. "I think you should win because you are a World Cup winner and you had one of the most amazing performances in the World Cup final, and just one month later you scored 135 not out to level England in the Ashes, and you were also England's top scorer with 441."

England begin their tour of South Africa with a two-day warm-up in Benoni on December 17, meaning that Stokes would have less than 24 hours to acclimatise were he to fly out to South Africa on the morning after the awards ceremony. The first Test gets underway at Centurion on December 26.