England allrounder Ben Stokes has spoken from managed isolation in New Zealand of his emotional response to news his father Ged has been diagnosed with brain cancer. Stokes has returned to his home town of Christchurch to be with his family and spoke to New Zealand media while spending two weeks in quarantine. New Zealand-born Stokes said he had no choice but to leave the England team during its recent test series against Pakistan after learning of his 64-year-old father's diagnosis.

"I didn't sleep for a week and my head wasn't really in it," Stokes told the Weekend Herald Saturday. "Leaving was the right choice from a mental point of view." Gerald (Ged) Stokes is a former New Zealand rugby league representative who coached for a decade in England, where Ben Stokes was raised from the age of 12. His illness was diagnosed in January when he returned to Christchurch from South Africa where he had been watching England's four-test series against South Africa.