England cricket captain Ben Stokes says masked burglars have stolen jewellery and "irreplaceable" personal items in a break-in at his home while he was away with the national team in Pakistan.
Stokes announced on Wednesday that the break-in took place while wife Clare and their children were in their Castle Eden home in north-east England on October 17.
That was the third day of the second Test between Pakistan and England in Multan, with Stokes having just returned to the team after injury.
Among the items Stokes said were taken in the robbery was his OBE, or Order of the British Empire, awarded to him in early 2020, shortly after his heroics during the drawn 2019 Ashes series.
"By far the worst thing about this crime is that it was carried out whilst my wife and 2 young children were in the house. Thankfully, none of my family came to any physical harm," he wrote on social media.
"Understandably, however, the experience has had an impact on their emotional and mental state.
"All we can think about is how much worse this situation could have been."
He said the thieves took jewellery and "other valuables and a good deal of personal items".
"Many of those items have real sentimental value for me and my family. They are irreplaceable," he said.
Stokes, a World Cup winner with England and one of the most famous sports stars in Britain, said he went public with the news in a bid to help police catch the burglars. He released photos of some of the stolen items.
"Although we have lost cherished possessions, to be clear, my sole motivation in sharing these photographs is not the recovery of material items. It is to catch the people who did this," he wrote.
Among the images was a diamond-encrusted gold ring with the English Three Lions engraved on it, a lion's head gold necklace and pendant, and a Christian Dior bag with his wife's initials on it.
AP/ABC
