Ben Stokes’s international career is hanging by a thread after his behaviour invited yet more unwelcome scrutiny of England’s drinking culture.
Only hours after leading his country to a restorative Test victory over New Zealand at Lord’s, Stokes and fast bowler Gus Atkinson were involved in a late-night fracas with a Saracens rugby player in a west London nightclub. From the moment of triumph to the uncertainty that has once more descended on English cricket, Daily Mail Sport tells the full story of an astonishing couple of days.
Sunday, 12.42pm Gus Atkinson bowls New Zealand No 11 Matt Henry and England win the first Test at Lord’s by 115 runs.
2pm Ben Stokes tells reporters: ‘I probably won’t be real happy and smiling until I get up there and share a proper beer with the boys, because I have to come here and do this – no disrespect to you guys.’
Stokes is said to have cut back on his drinking (as well as his smoking) after the Ashes, though the understanding was he would still share a beer with team-mates at the end of a Test.
2.10pm Back in the dressing-room, his team-mates are already drinking. Player of the match Ollie Robinson, in his first Test for more than two years, emerges on to the balcony to raise a pint of Guinness to the crowd, who have been allowed on to the outfield to make up for the fact that the fourth day’s play has lasted just 19 overs.
Gus Atkinson celebrates taking the final New Zealand wicket, that of Matt Henry, to lead England to a five-wicket victory at Lord’s at 12.42pm on Sunday
Ben Stokes speaks to Mike Atherton after the match at around 2pm. The England captain says: ‘I probably won’t be real happy until I get up there and share a proper beer with the boys’
2.30pm Brendon McCullum tells the press that Stokes’s batting ‘fluency is starting to come back’, despite scores of 12 and nought. He adds: ‘It would have been great if he had been able to get instant gratification with runs in this match. It didn’t happen, but I’m pretty confident we’ll see some runs and output in the Tests to come.’
5.15-5.30pm After celebrating in the dressing-room, the team leave Lord’s. Some players with families, like wicketkeeper Jamie Smith, head off to join their partners and children. One witness who sees other players exit the pavilion says it’s obvious they have enjoyed a drink.
7.30pm Nearly six hours after the end of the Test, senior MCC officials – including chair Mark Nicholas and director of cricket and operations Rob Lynch – head home, having finished a crisis meeting at Lord’s into the state of the pitch, and completely unaware that their own problems are about to disappear from the headlines.
It later emerges that the ICC have rated the surface ‘unsatisfactory’, and docked Lord’s a demerit point – the first such punishment in the ground’s history. Six demerit points means a venue cannot stage international cricket for 12 months.
‘There was plenty of excessive seam movement throughout the Test, and the ball also kept extremely low on several occasions,’ said ICC match referee Andy Pycroft. ‘There was simply an over-balance in favour of ball against bat caused by the pitch.’
Early evening: A group of players, including Joe Root, converge on the White Horse pub in Parsons Green, south-west London, about 20 minutes’ drive south from the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, where the team stayed during the Test.
The pub, nicknamed the ‘Sloaney Pony’, is busy because of a Polo in the Park event at the nearby Hurlingham Club.
Staff say Stokes is already ‘tipsy’ when he arrives, and the England players bump into members of the Saracens rugby team, who are out celebrating the end of their season, and had earlier been drinking at the Crabtree pub in Fulham and the Boundary pub on the King’s Road. The Boundary is part-owned by Brendon McCullum and Saracens hooker Jamie George, and was co-founded by Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler and Sam Billings.
Stokes is seen downing double rum and cokes with England rugby captain Maro Itoje, and splashing out on rounds costing up to £25 each.
The Saracens team were drinking in The Boundary pub, part-owned by Brendon McCullum and Saracens hooker Jamie George, on Sunday afternoon
The White Horse in Parson’s Green, south-west London, also known as ‘The Sloaney Pony’, where England’s cricketers bumped into the Saracens rugby team who had moved on from The Boundary
Maro Itoje, the England captain, was out with his Saracens teammates celebrating the end of their season
The cricketers are seen in friendly conversation with George, England and Saracens flanker Ben Earl – an old schoolfriend of Zak Crawley, who was dropped as England opener ahead of the New Zealand series – and Itoje. The entire group of cricketers and rugby players numbers around 20 in total, and there is no indication of any of the aggro to come.
11pm At pub closing time, five of the England players head back to their hotel, in accordance with the midnight curfew imposed after the Ashes by Stokes, McCullum and managing director Rob Key, and observed throughout the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka and the subsequent T20 World Cup on the subcontinent.
Stokes and Atkinson head west in a taxi up the King’s Road to the Rex Rooms nightclub, once a favoured haunt of Prince Harry. It is hosting the official after-party of the polo event.
Among the Saracens players who join them are 21-year-old Samoan Totoa Auvuaa, a 6ft 5in lock forward from the club’s academy, and his fellow Samoan Theo McFarland.
1am, Monday A fracas occurs in the club’s VIP area, apparently over an argument about seating arrangements. Auvaa is understood to throw a punch at Atkinson, but instead hits a member of England’s security team, who has turned up to keep an eye on the two cricketers, but now requires stitches.
Neither player is injured in the melee. The security officer reports the incident to the ECB, though the police are not involved.
9am Ben Duckett, who had made headlines during England’s trip to Noosa on Australia’s Sunshine Coast between the second and third Ashes Tests, is seen checking out of the team hotel with his wife and young daughter.
6pm The ECB release a statement saying they are ‘investigating a breach of team protocols’. England insist Atkinson and Stokes did not throw any punches and were in no way the cause of the trouble.
The Rex Rooms nightclub on the King’s Road where Stokes and Atkinson got into an altercation with Saracens player Totoa Auvuaa, a 6ft 5in lock
The announcement of the squad for the second Test against New Zealand at The Oval, starting on June 17, is postponed from Tuesday, with Harry Brook – already England’s white-ball captain – set to replace Stokes as captain, despite having been warned about his future conduct after he was punched by a nightclub bouncer in Wellington, New Zealand, during the white-ball tour that preceded the Ashes.
2pm, Tuesday Daily Mail Sport reveals that Stokes, who faces a possible two-match ban for breaking the team curfew, is considering his future – not just as England captain but as an international cricketer.
His last seven Test innings have produced just 35 runs, and he has already been demoted in the line-up to No 7, below Smith.
Additional reporting by Richard Gibson
