Yet again, the England men’s cricket team is picking through the wreckage of a late-night misdemeanour.
The latest stain on the game’s reputation is a result of pictures of fast bowler Brydon Carse in handcuffs and surrounded by police officers outside a nightspot in Derby. His Durham team-mate Matthew Potts is in the images, while former England captain Ben Stokes appears in the background.
If you’re keeping score, we’re now up to eight England players involved in incidents of this kind since Halloween last year.
Harry Brook was punched by a nightclub bouncer in Wellington, with Jacob Bethell and Josh Tongue present. Ben Duckett was filmed drunk in Noosa, then Stokes and Gus Atkinson were there when a member of England’s security staff was struck in a London nightclub in June, breaching a curfew in the process.
To put it another way, there are 30 men currently on England central contracts. More than a quarter of them have been caught up in bother in the past 10 months. Of the four separate incidents, two have involved punches being thrown and another was a police matter.
In Carse’s case, the time spent in handcuffs came days after new England Test captain Joe Root called on his players to be “really good role models, good human beings”.
Root was speaking the day before England’s first Test against Pakistan, for which Carse was part of the squad. The match was scheduled to still be ongoing when he found himself in the hands of the police.
It is understood that Carse was not arrested. Both the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the Cricket Regulator will work to establish what happened. There are early suggestions he was denied entry back into a nightclub, or he had a drink poured over him.
Carse was also not specifically on England duty at the time. He was released from the first-Test squad to play for Durham away at Derbyshire and was scheduled to report to Lord’s for the second Test on Monday.
As of Sunday evening, he remains part of the squad for the second Test. England will take time to gather some information before a decision on his involvement is made.
Root warned his squad to “be adults” when he abolished the midnight curfew – in his first act as captain – that came into place after previous incidents. As part of that move, guidelines advising players about not drinking alcohol on the day before, during or after a game, or in public, have also been removed.
There is a duty of care towards Carse. Two years ago, the 31-year-old was banned for historical betting offences and rebuilt his career to become an England regular in all three formats. No bowler has more Test wickets for England than Carse’s 58 since he made his debut in October 2024.
But there is also a deep sense of anger and frustration within the ECB at having to deal with another error of judgement by a high-profile player. Supporters will take their own view, among them a sense that the behaviour of these players is now beyond parody.
Does someone have to be left out of a squad or given a meaty suspension for the penny to drop? This might be the opportunity for Root to stamp his authority on a new era.
Naturally, there will once again be the debate about not denying players their freedom or stopping them from enjoying a victory.
For Carse, a Saturday night out came less than 48 hours before he is scheduled to report for England. He is only a tweaked hamstring away from playing in a Test at Lord’s on Thursday.
Perhaps more damning is the kind of trouble this group of England players seem to find. Two punch-ups and a set of handcuffs. It also does not appear to have dawned on them that they are high-profile individuals, likely to attract attention, with footage finding its way to social media, as happened with Carse.
And what about Stokes, who, despite being retired, remains an employee of the ECB via his central contract.
As the former captain, should Stokes have been conscious about Carse being in that situation? What about the trouble in which Atkinson found himself alongside Stokes in June?
Three weeks ago, Stokes denied the England team has a drinking culture, but rather that the game itself has a problem. What has Stokes done to distance himself or those around him from that drinking culture?
Now there is a wait to see what happens next. The ECB only became aware of the incident on Sunday afternoon. The governing body will take a breath overnight and decide if Carse needs to be removed from the Test squad.
Perhaps, on Tuesday, director of cricket Rob Key will once again explain why the players he manages cannot keep themselves out of trouble. In the aftermath of the Stokes-Atkinson incident in June, Key denied that England have become a “national embarrassment”. He may be asked again.
Key also might be asked about the whereabouts of new Test coach Stephen Fleming, who does not take up his post until the winter. Might Carse have been less inclined to step out of line had the new sheriff been in town?
Well, here is another situation for England to manage. Only strong action will ensure there are no more.
