English cricket is a victim of alcohol indulgence. Recently, one of its greats, Ben Stokes, announced his retirement, and a bar brawl played a big role in his leaving cricket much earlier than expected.
There was another bar brawl involving England white-ball captain Harry Brook. It happened last year during the England-New Zealand ODI series in Wellington in October. However, the incident came to light much later, after the Ashes in early January this year.
Then during the Ashes, the English team had taken a little break in Noosa, a coastal holiday destination in Australia, and later reports emerged that some of the players had heavily indulged in drinking. England opener Ben Duckett was photographed in an inebriated state, and that brought a lot of bad press for the visiting side. There were many such alcohol-related incidents in the past too. All this led to England coming up with the curfew model that was designed to rein in alcohol consumption, but there were still ambiguities in it, leading to the Stokes incident last month.
Now, according to the Telegraph, players have been advised not to drink the day before and the day after a contest, not just during it. The midnight curfew stays in place. There could be relaxations now and then, but they will be decided by director of cricket Rob Key and head coach Brendon McCullum. These are only recommendations and if players do decide to drink, it should not be in public at least. There should be no social media activity around it either.
Ever since the Noosa holiday and the Brook bar brawl, there have been discussions going on in English cricket about whether alcohol consumption was a big problem in its system. Many former players spoke against it but then there were also some who found the argument petty. Anyway, now it is clear that the powers that be in the ECB consider alcohol consumption a problem and that they want to eliminate it, if not entirely, then at least to the extent where it doesn’t give cricketers a bad name or affect their game/career.
Stokes, after his retirement, had admitted the bar episode had played a role in his decision to call it quits. “There was a build-up to it, how things were during the whole week at Lord’s and then another moment when I sat next to Joe Root in the dressing room. Obviously, another scenario happened that added to it. It’s never easy with me, is it? It was an unfortunate situation to be involved in over the past two weeks,” he said.
