
Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
Stokes, stay or go?
Reluctantly, I say go. Ordinarily, I’m against curfews for sportsmen and women,but, over a period of time, this England team has behaved in a way which makes me think that, perhaps, this team needs to have one. I keep on hearing people say Gus Atkinson is one of the last players you would expect to get involved in an after curfew “nightclub incident”, but it seems to be generally accepted that a breach of the curfew has taken place, so some sort of punishment seems appropriate.
However, besides Atkinson, four members of the team that played New Zealand have previous when it comes to drink related incidents most of which took place in pubs or nightclubs dyuring the sort of times you might expect a curfew to apply. Stokes himself missed a tour of Australia because of an incident with a bouncer outside a nightclub, the current white ball captain was fined what we were told was the maximum amount permitted by the ECB following a nightclub incident in New Zealand just before the last Ashes tour. Ben Duckett blotted his copybook on his first England tour by pouring a pint of beer over Jimmy Anderson and was pictured looking very much the worse for wear on England’s “beach break” between test matches in the winter. Finally, although he was reported as being the innocent party, Joe Root and David Warner had a bout of fisticuffs before an Ashes series.