England are trailing 2-0 in the Ashes series to Australia but it’s not just the pitch where they’re having issues.
Off-field behaviour keeps hitting the headlines. The latest player in the dock is England Lions’s Ben Duckett, who has been fined and suspended for “pouring beer over James Anderson” at a bar in Perth.
Duckett will remain with the Lions squad, says The Guardian, but his “late-night prank” is the latest in a series of incidents overshadowing England’s Ashes tour.
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First there was Ben Stokes, who was arrested in September on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm. Next came allegations that wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow had ‘headbutted’ Australian batsman Cameron Bancroft.
While the investigation into Stokes has yet to be concluded and the Bairstow incident was “blown out of all proportion”, England captain Joe Root and coach Trevor Bayliss have had to deal with more scrutiny of player behaviour off-field than on.
All-rounder Moeen Ali, who captained England to a draw in a two-day warm-up clash against a Cricket Australia XI at the weekend, admits that standards have to improve. If they don’t then the future of English cricket is at risk, he warns.
“As cricketers and professionals, with the scrutiny that is on us, we have to obviously be careful and behave ourselves,” Moeen told the Guardian. “With young kids watching and hearing the news, we have to be on our best behaviour. I think it’s really important that we inspire the younger generation to take up the game. It could turn them away. That’s not what we want.”
Moeen says that as “grown men” cricketers should know how to behave. “Through county cricket all the way up to international cricket, the individual needs to be responsible for his behaviour,” he says. “As a cricketer from a young age there’s always been this sort of thing. But maybe the culture needs to change now. We want cricket to grow for kids, and for families to come and watch.”
After the warm-up match in Perth, Moeen was asked by a local reporter if he and his England team-mates would be able to “stay away from pubs between now and Thursday”. He answered: “I’m not much of a pub guy, to be honest.”
While ESPN called the reporter’s question “pretty crass”, as Moeen is a practising Muslim and teetotal, the moment “did serve to highlight how the image of the England squad has long since separated from reality”.
Describing the England booze-cruise narrative as “unfair” and “inaccurate”, ESPN writer George Dobell acknowledged that this is now the perception of the team. The Stokes situation still clouds the tour despite his absence from the squad.
“Once perceptions are set, they are harder to shift than red wine stains on cricket whites,” writes Dobell. “All England’s problems here stem from that fateful September night in Bristol. But it remains absurd and unfair to judge the entire squad on the actions of one man who isn’t even here.”
Dobell believes it’s harsh to pin the blame on the English management. “They can’t legislate for a guy greeting an opposition player with a ‘good-natured’ head-butt, any more than they legislate for players pouring beer over one another.”
After referrring to the drinking culture as a “red herring”, Dobell said that for English cricket to improve the focus should not be on “what time their players go to bed” but on factors such as the “marginalisation of the county championship programme” and the “reliance upon English conditions in home Tests that has provided an illusion that all is well”.
