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England's Harry Brook reacts during play on day two of the fifth and final Ashes cricket test between England and Australia in Sydney. (AP Photo)
As scrutiny grows on the England team’s behaviour during the recent Ashes series Down Under where Ben Stokes’ men were thumped 1-4 by Australia, former England cricketer Stuart Broad has come to the defence of the side claiming they “do not have a drinking problem.”
The four defeats in five Tests at the hands of Australia were punctuated by incidents of players being seen drinking. Multiple England team members were spotted drinking on multiple days in Noosa during a break that the team took in the middle of the Ashes tour. After England’s defeat in the series was completed, media reports revealed that England’s limited-overs captain Harry Brook had been slapped with a fine of 30,000 pounds ($40,300) for getting into a fight with a bar bouncer during England’s tour of New Zealand right before the Ashes. While Brook was given a ‘final warning’ for his future conduct, he was not stripped of the white-ball captaincy and also continued to be the vice captain of the England team in the recently-concluded Ashes tour.
Despite those incidents painting a picture of the England players, Broad believes that the side do not have a drinking problem.
“They’ve just had a couple of guys who have made mistakes and that’s got into the media. I think it’s up to your teammates to get you out of those situations, and that’s when your culture’s really strong. Ben Duckett isn’t left alone, no idea where his hotel is. Harry Brook doesn’t get himself in a situation with a bouncer, because they’re not allowed anywhere near that situation. So I think that’s the thing that will disappoint [head coach] Brendon McCullum,” Broad said on his For the Love of Cricket podcast.
Broad also dismissed suggestions that England could impose a “midnight curfew on players”.
“I really didn’t like having a 12 o’clock curfew, because I just didn’t feel like you should need it. As long as you have people around you to get yourself home at a suitable hour, having the teammates around you to go, your time’s up.
“I look at this England team, they’re not drinking. I’ve seen loads of things about a drinking culture and we got that in 2021-22 when we left Australia. Crawley, Pope, and in recent times Stokes and Root – they’re not really drinkers, are they? They’re not party animals and going out tearing it to shreds. There isn’t a drinking culture. I’ll hang my hat on that, if I’m honest, knowing the boys as well as I do. But it is just making sure the boys don’t get in trouble when situations arise,” he added.
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Broad’s views are contrary to those of other former England cricketers like Michael Vaughan, who, upon learning about the incident with Brook, had remarked that it did not surprise him.
“The incident doesn’t surprise me. They’ve (England team) been quite loose for a while. And I guess, you know, whether it’s consequences with shots that have been played over the course of the last three years, there hasn’t been one,” Michael Vaughan told BBC. “And now obviously the loose nature of this environment. The Noosa trip was fine for me, but the Noosa trip on the back of what we now know went on in New Zealand. You have to point the finger at the leadership group or the ECB, because if they knew, and then we had this incident, and then he played the next day as England captain,” he added.
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