Category: Cricket

Midnight bedtime was entirely a public relations exercise to reconnect with fans – the same fans the ECB invites to one long piss-up at Lord’s

The laws of cricket run to 200-and-some pages. The International Cricket Council’s Test playing regulations fill another 125, the anti-doping code packs another 66, the code of conduct is 44 more, illegal bowling actions 37, kit and equipment 36. You’d be hard pressed to find one single rule anywhere among them as silly as the one we know Ben Stokes has just broken, which stipulates that players can’t stay out past midnight. And yes, that does include ICC clothing regulation 19.45, which says that the maximum size of the manufacturer’s label permitted on ankle of players’ socks is two square inches.

So far as we know, the only thing Stokes has done wrong is break this self-imposed curfew. That may change. The investigation may reveal more details about his alleged involvement in an altercation involving a rugby player. But if there was one very clear lesson from the last time Stokes was involved in a situation like this, at Embargo nightclub in 2017, it’s that it’s worth waiting for the facts. But the drums have already started thumping. Dread phrases like “hanging by a thread” and “hard to see how he can continue” were all over the press.

• ECB looking into ‘a breach of team protocols’

• Atkinson also present at club along with Saracens players

Ben Stokes’ future as England Test captain has been thrown into doubt after the England and Wales Cricket Board launched an investigation into “a breach of team protocol” related to an incident involving Stokes and Gus Atkinson that took place in a ­London nightclub in the early hours of­ ­Monday morning.

Both players have been referred to the Cricket Regulator, an ­independent disciplinary body with the power to impose suspensions and unlimited fines, and a decision is expected imminently over whether they will be allowed to participate in the ­second Test against New Zealand that starts at the Oval on 17 June – a squad without them in it could be named as early as Tuesday.

Gus Atkinson claimed three more wickets as England wrapped up victory despite resistance from Devon Conway and Glenn Phillips

25th over: New Zealand 77-6 (Conway 26, Phillips 9) Conway, facing Tongue, decides that he may as well come to the party. First he steers a four to gully’s right, then he tries to leave a lifter, reacts too late, pats it to Harry Brook at second slip – and is dropped as Brook can only tip it over the bar.

24th over: New Zealand 71-6 (Conway 20, Phillips 9) Robinson continues, moving the ball both ways. Phillips finds the boundary in no time – but only off the inside edge. And again, with his first shot of some authority, punched past cover. “You need to be playing Twenty20 here,” says Stuart Broad, and Phillips, unlike the rest of the Kiwis, seems to agree. He’s been there five minutes and has already made more runs than Latham, O’Rourke, Ravindra and Mitchell put together.