England captain Ben Stokes says masked burglars raided his house while wife and children were home

England Test captain Ben Stokes has said masked burglars raided his home while he was competing in Pakistan earlier this month.

Stokes said in a post online that jewellery, valuables and a “good deal of personal items” were taken on 17 October when his wife and two young children were at their home in Castle Eden, County Durham.

“Many of those items have real sentimental value for me and my family,” the England cricket star said. “They are irreplaceable.”

He added: “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.

“By far the worst thing about this crime is that it was carried out whilst my wife and two young children were in the house.

“Thankfully, none of my family came to any physical harm. 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 finished the post by thanking the police for offering “outstanding” support to his family and continuing to work “incredibly hard” to find the culprits.

The cricket captain then shared two more posts with images of the missing possessions, including unique pieces of jewellery and his OBE medal.

One item is a gold necklace with a lion pendant that has the words ‘some may be better but none will be braver’ engraved on the back.

Another is a gold ring custom-made by fine jewellery designer MJ Jones. The ring features the England cricket logo with diamonds surrounding it.

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The possessions also include a Christian Dior handbag monogrammed with his wife Clare’s initials, and two more necklaces: one with a dark gemstone and another with a diamond-encrusted ‘4C’ design, in a nod to the 4CAST entrepreneurial collective he founded with fellow players Jofra Archer and Stuart Broad.

Stokes has urged anyone who may have information on the stolen goods to contact Durham Constabulary.

Having been forced to miss the first of England’s three Test matches in Pakistan due to injury, Stokes had made a return and was captaining the side in Multan when the robbery took place. The match, won by Pakistan, finished the day after the raid.