Category: England National Cricket

• Stokes and Gus Atkinson left out for Oval Test after curfew breach

• McCullum speaking to Stokes daily, not pushing him to return to cricket

Brendon McCullum has spoken of his concern for Ben Stokes’s wellbeing as the England captain sits out this week’s second Test against New Zealand as a result of his breaking the team curfew after the first Test at Lord’s.

The fallout from Stokes and his teammate Gus Atkinson deciding to spend the early hours of last Monday morning at a Chelsea nightclub rather than the team hotel has dominated the week between the two matches. While McCullum, the England head coach, admitted he initially had a strong negative reaction to learning about the curfew breach, he said this quickly changed. He has spoken to Stokes every day since the story broke, and said those conversations had left him feeling worried.

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The sport’s misguided morals mean England’s Test captain has been humbled for a meaningless infraction and kept off the stage for which he was made

There are times when it’s possible to keep sport in a sensible perspective, and then there are weeks it challenges your very sanity. This has felt like one of those.

Perhaps the US president erecting a cage‑fighting octagon in his back garden is – given the state of the world – not that crazy. After all, it’s probably less tacky than paving over the Rose Garden, or the proposed ballroom‑slash‑droneport‑slash‑triumphal‑arch. You say a World Cup referee has been denied entry to the US because he’s from Somalia? Well, really. Anyone who didn’t see that coming hasn’t been paying attention.

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• Rob Key says ECB need time to consider future

• ECB chiefs were in ‘shock’ after nightclub incident

The England and Wales Cricket Board is considering imposing a complete ban on alcohol while players are on international duty as they ponder the best response to the incident at a Chelsea nightclub that led to Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson being dropped for next week’s second Test against New Zealand, and to the stream of embarrassing stories over the past eight months.

Rob Key, the ECB’s managing director of men’s cricket, admitted on Thursday that it is now hard to say the players can show they are to be trusted to behave responsibly. The two players broke a midnight curfew and were then allegedly involved in a fight that broke out in the early hours of Monday morning, though there is no suggestion that either were active participants. “Everything we’ve looked at so far, everything we’ve found out, it looks like they were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Key said. “They weren’t aggressive or anything, and actually it looks like they were on the receiving end of some pretty poor behaviour from other people.”

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• Stokes in talks with agent and advisers over his future

• Atkinson also left out with Barker and Archer set to play

Joe Root will captain England in next week’s second Test against New Zealand after Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson were left out of the squad for breaking the team curfew as they celebrated victory in the first game of the series on Sunday night.

While the England & Wales Cricket Board continue their investigation into that incident Stokes, the team’s full-time captain, is being given some time to consider his future. He is reported to have spent Wednesday in meetings with his agent and advisers debating whether to permanently stand down as captain, or to end his international career completely. He may still choose to do neither, with the former England captain Michael Vaughan having joined those backing him to stay. “Yes, he broke a curfew,” Vaughan said. “Is that a sacking offence as England’s Test captain? I don’t think so. A short suspension would be fine, but this is not a big enough incident over which to lose the captaincy.”

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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.

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• 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.

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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.

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• Teenager in squad for T20s against Ireland and England

• Set to be youngest India debutant since Tendulkar

The teenage phenomenon Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been handed his maiden India call-up for their T20 series against Ireland and England.

An array of outrageous knocks in the Indian Premier League led to the 15-year-old opener collecting the most valuable player award after amassing 776 runs at a staggering strike-rate of 237.30.

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With the Test team under pressure and desperately craving engagement, a returning firebrand could salvage the summer

The winged elephant swoops down Deansgate towards the ship canal, its wings glowing neon orange, a feral roar rising and falling unevenly in volume. A black taxi drives the wrong way down a rain-moistened street. A menacing urchin child with a dozen fingers stands in front of a disused steampunk factory, holding an outsized Victoriana bat.

Now there’s a bowler, who’s actually a wicketkeeper, who may actually be Jos Buttler in batting gloves. There are three batters at the crease, one of them in white and the other two in red. Aiden Markram runs up and bowls sideways. There is no ball in his hand. “Red in the dark, blue in the sea,” a haunting voiceover sings. The sun is out. The floodlights are on.

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Debate over Jofra Archer’s absence after his IPL stint and at least one new face in Emilio Gay add to enticing storylines

Lord’s hosts its 150th Test match this week and, like its famous lunch menu, there are plenty of enticing options as regards storylines. England are seeking redemption and refinement, apparently, following that god-awful Ashes winter. New Zealand are both familiar opponents and a tricky first assignment.

There is at least one new face for England, with Emilio Gay confirmed to make his debut at opener after patience with Zak Crawley finally snapped. There is an old one too, with Ollie Robinson back from the cold and set to take the new ball after convincing the management that he is now a committed professional.

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It may be the closely guarded private fiefdom of the MCC, but weight of history makes the ground a true institution

There are three Lord’s in London. The first is six feet under Dorset Square next to Marylebone station, where these days a square foot of a single-bed flat will set you back a thousand pounds. The second is buried beneath the Lisson Grove moorings on the Regents canal, where the canal boaters grow tomatoes along the towpath. And the third, the current world-famous ground, is two blocks over on the Wellington Road, on a patch rented in the 19th century from the Eyre family, who made their money in wine and slavery. So long as there are ravens in the Tower, it always will be.

This week, Lord’s holds its 150th Test. It was a late starter. Tests were played at Melbourne, Sydney, the Oval and Old Trafford before it held its first in July 1884, but it will become the first ground in the world to reach this sesquicentenary. The MCG comes next, with 118. But then, much to the gall of every other corner of the country where they play Test cricket, Lord’s has had the advantage of holding two games a year every year this century. And because this is England, they’ve managed to make the rest of us think it’s us who are privileged by it.

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• Critics have called situation ‘ludicrous’ and ‘frustrating’

• ‘Jofra may not play for England if handled differently’

Ben Stokes has defended England’s decision to excuse Jofra Archer from the start of the Test summer so he could compete in the Indian Premier League, saying a more militant approach risks a situation where “players like him might not play for England again”.

On Wednesday Archer was strongly criticised by the former New Zealand bowler Simon Doull, who described his absence as “absolutely ludicrous” and “completely wrong”. The former England batter Mark Butcher has previously said it was “absolutely ridiculous”, while Michael Atherton described it as “incredibly frustrating”.

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• Brendon McCullum backs quick bowler to bring ‘noise’

• Gus Atkinson could play if conditions less hot at Lord’s

England have announced a slimmed-down squad of 12 for the first match of the summer, against New Zealand at Lord’s starting on Thursday, postponing until the last minute a decision over whether to reward the “full noise” approach of Hampshire’s Sonny Baker with a Test debut.

The approach mirrors that at the first Ashes Test last November, when England announced a 12-man squad that featured both Mark Wood and Shoaib Bashir before opting in the end for Wood’s extra pace. On this occasion Bashir will play, having been preferred to Rehan Ahmed as the team’s frontline spinner, while Jacob Bethell is fit after a finger injury and also able to bowl if required.

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The England head coach has five key challenges to address in the buildup to next week’s first Test against New Zealand at Lord’s

For all that the series was obviously a failure, England were competitive for periods of most of the Ashes Tests. But McCullum has repeatedly conceded that in the key moments when matches tend to be decided his side have a habit of stumbling. The question is why, and on Friday he made the telling admission: “I thought some of our guys were more ready for the pressure that was coming in Australia than they [actually] were.” So he has had to reconsider how to best prepare for such intangibles. England were widely condemned for a lackadaisical buildup to the first Ashes Test but McCullum implied that his players’ problem was not down to poor preparation, but actually to poor, or insufficient, coaching. Given that the removal of pressure has always been at the very heart of his coaching philosophy, this is essentially an admission of failure. “That’s always been one of our things, to try and take pressure away from the guys,” he said. “[But] it’s going to land with some guys before it’s going to land with others, and our job is to make sure it lands with everyone a little quicker than maybe it has done.” McCullum is now clear that for his players to overcome pressure he does not just have to create good vibes, but also put in hard work. “It’s making sure we’re a little bit more drilled down on some of those tactics so the guys have got absolute clarity in those pressure moments, so that we can hopefully be able to handle those better than we have in the bigger series so far,” he said.

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• Top-order batter to fly back to UK for medical assessment

• Risks missing series opener with New Zealand at Lord’s

England’s top-order batter Jacob Bethell will return to the UK to be “fully assessed” on the finger injury he picked up playing in the Indian Premier League.

Bethell was missing from the Royal Challengers Bengaluru side which lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad on Friday, with the captain, Rajat Patidar, confirming the 22-year-old had damaged his finger.

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