Stokes in doubt for Ashes
ENGLAND cricket star Ben Stokes could be ruled out of the Ashes series after video footage emerged of him flooring another man outside a UK nightclub.
The Sun newspaper claims Stokes threw a flurry of “15 punches in one minute” before a knockout blow that sent a 27year-old man crashing to the pavement and requiring hospital treatment.
The 26-year-old allrounder was arrested in the early hours of Monday following the incident in Bristol, in England’s southwest. He was held overnight and released — without charge — late on Monday.
England and Wales Cricket Board director of cricket Andrew Strauss has named Stokes in the 16-man Ashes squad and confirmed he would, at least for now, remain vicecaptain.
The player fractured his right hand in the incident, but Strauss said he was confident the injury would heal in time for the Ashes series. He said the board would conduct a thorough investigation before deciding Stokes’s fate.
Footage of the incident appears to show one of the two men he is fighting clutching a bottle, therefore posing questions about how the fight started.
Former Victorian cricketer Darren Berry lamented seeing footage. A former state captain, Berry was with former Australian Test player David Hookes when he died from a king-hit in January 2004.
“Sadly just viewed the damning video footage of the Ben Stokes incident,” he said on Twitter.
“It brought back horrific memories for me. Nothing good comes of this.”
Hookes, who was wicketkeeper Berry’s coach at the Bushrangers at the time of his death, was punched to the ground in Melbourne by a hotel bouncer, who was later acquitted of manslaughter.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan did not condone Stokes’s behaviour, but asked whether the allrounder might have been trying to stop a random attack.
Stokes could face difficulty entering Australia if the incident is still hanging over his head later this year.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has the power to refuse or cancel a visa on the basis that a person does not pass the character test.
The test can rule out applications from people who have been found guilty of a high- level of criminality, including people smuggling, people trafficking, genocide, or a crime that is of “serious international concern”.
It can also rule out those viewed as a “danger to the Australian community or a part of it”. A Government source said the matter was currently one for UK authorities and the England Cricket Board and was “purely hypothetical at this stage”.