I suspect Stokes/McCullum will be looking to make changes. They tried to build a settled long term squad aiming for the Ashes. Irrespective of that debacle, I imagine they would have always planned to be subsequently looking around with a view towards the future.
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Not sure if anyone saw the debacle at the WIPL with the third umpire repeatedly asking for replays of a bat being grounded.
It made VAR in the Premiership look super slick, and most likely affected the outcome of the match
Yes, I saw that. It was painful.
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Yes, I won’t say what I thought - but we have seen how breaks in momentum can alter a T20 result and it ruined what looked to be a super match
So it gets messier. Brook now admits he lied in the account he gave to us all after his altercation with a bouncer in NZ became public. So the story the mananagent and Brook tried to suppress is still unravelling.
New white ball captain needed to restore a modicum of dignity and integrity. Please.
Bruce
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So another level of cover up unpeeled.
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Of course they were , a group of young men touring together aren’t likely to go out to a nightclub without going out as a group ,
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So why lie about it?
My suspicion is that he “took the heat” to deflect criticism of his team .
Sir Alex Ferguson always held a party , where wives and girlfriends could come and it was strictly off limits, so what happened there , stayed there.
I would suspect the England team could have/ should have followed the same principle , hired a golf club or somewhere similar so that the team could have had a break away from bad publicity and away from casinos etc
And away from England fans and the media .
Not since Lord Gower flew a plane over a match has there been a larger debacle. Listening to the Australian commentators at the BBL final they could not believe some of the accounts.
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This story really is not good;
Too drunk to be admitted to a Night Club.
Then causing an “altercation”
The night before an international match.
He is the Captain of the team.
An employer that had no rules in place to prevent it, which is perhaps the root of the problem.
Presumably the story is magnified as they then played poor and at times stupid cricket.
…and everyone keeps their jobs.
As an aside, before I retired fully I had a part-time driving job. We were all occasionally breath tested for alcohol. Zero tolerance. If it didn’t read zero you were out. Very easy to follow rule if you wanted to do the job. It’s not as if cricketer play every day.
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I think it looks just as bad for the management. Players shouldn’t have gone out on the lash the night before a game but that they did so reflects the culture of the squad. What grates is that it was first covered up. Then when the story came out Brook lies about what actually happened until that deceit is uncovered too.
We saw lack of proper preparation, discipline and above all accountability on the field from players. Don’t the same issues around off-field behaviour just illustrate the same throughout the entire set-up?
The focus has switched to the Sri Lanka tour and then the T20WC so it feels like the Ashes debacle is being quietly forgotten. Not by lots of cricket fans it isn’t!
Bruce
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I agree that lying about it was stupid and players should turn up fully fit to play but on a broader point I think the media microscope applied to leading sports people is outrageous.
In my opinion they are obliged to be fit to do their best on the field but they are not obliged to be role models off it and they are entitled to a private life. As well as the gratuitous filming of the team at Noosa, the filming of Coco Gauff when she was not in public was an appalling intrusion. It may be argued that they are highly paid and choose to accept media access as part of their contract but that implies that anyone who wants a private life is excluded from top level sport as it is literally the only game in town.
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I bet many teams of yore would be relieved not to be subject to the scrutiny of today.
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I agree re privacy and respect for private space but in fairness getting into a fight with a bouncer when drunk is potentially an offence, as was the affray that Stoke was charged with (and later acquitted). So I think some behaviours do require accountability and scrutiny.
Of course much of the intrusion these days is not from professional media, but public with smartphones.
Bruce
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I think Lindwall, Miller, Compton and Edrich would have been in big trouble if they had been subject to today’s media scrutiny.
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Mess.
“Pakistan to play at T20 World Cup - but refuse to face India” BBC.
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The article didn’t make it clear; do they forfeit the fixture?
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I had the same thought.
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I’m not sure what’s changed since they organised this tournament – and perhaps that’s better left to one side, but it’s turning in to a farce.
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IMV, it distorts the tournament. If India get given the match they get two points they might not have got, which is unfair to all other teams.
If, I think unlikely, they get one point, then it deprives India of a possible two points.
Your use of the word farce is well chosen imho.