It feels like every Test involving England these days is one of critical importance in some way or other. On one level, this is good for business, showing the depth of interest compared with other, ahem, products. But it is not necessarily a good thing for the team in this instance.
Since Ben Stokes retired and the last of Bazball’s many funerals in June, the players left behind have been trying to wriggle free from their recent past. Problem is, they are finding certain aspects trickier to shake off than others. For the second time this summer, a thumping win to go 1-0 up has been doused instantly by a late night on the drink and the headlines inevitably generated.
England are likely to go into this Lord’s Test against Pakistan on Thursday unchanged, and so in that respect it beats the Rex Rooms fiasco and the semi-skimmed team that was then hammered at the Oval. The briefly handcuffed Brydon Carse, unused last week, was with his county when the latest self-own took place. And yet the footage of Carse outside Molly Malone’s Irish Tavern still came at the worst possible time for Joe Root as, with his new head coach still to arrive, he tries to plot a fresh course.
Root would sooner be drilling the on-field basics into his new-look side, not issuing yet more reminders about off-field standards. Drink-related stories tend to trigger all manner of conversations about the sport’s relationship with alcohol. And like any Lord’s Test, the bingo card of opinions will again be ticked off to a soundtrack of popping corks and beer flowing freely from the taps.
But even with English cricket’s temperance movement still a fringe one, the public do expect a certain level of professionalism: more professional, certainly, than Harry Brook being clocked by a bouncer the night before captaining his country. And maybe, in a busy home summer, not going too large after a solitary win. With all due respect to Derbyshire, sixth in Division Two and last seen in the top flight 13 years ago, they are not – or at least shouldn’t be – a 4am departure from the Irish bar kind of victory if you are an international cricketer.
If Durham’s players thought so, good luck to them in some ways. They will argue they had earned an extra day off. Notwithstanding the precise details of the incident being looked at by Derbyshire police and the Cricket Regulator, Carse’s sporting mistake was not thinking like a player due to join up with a Test squad two days later.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
