Cricket star in brawl ‘went to help clubbers’
He claims yobs – one armed with a bottle – were screaming abuse
BEN Stokes’ 2am brawl was apparently sparked by him confronting yobs who were hurling gay abuse at two clubbers in the street.
The cricket ace was yesterday banned from playing for England after his arrest over the clash which left one man needing hospital treatment. The England Cricket Board said the all-rounder would be dropped indefinitely after footage emerged of him swinging punches at two men before knocking one down. Team-mate Alex Hales, who was with him at the time, was also suspended. Stokes, 26, now faces missing the Ashes tour of Australia. He has
told police and cricket chiefs the fight started when he saw yobs, one armed with a bottle, abusing at two gay men and rushed to help them.
In the video, 6ft Stokes swings at two men before knocking one to the ground. He is then floored and grapples with one of the men, while the other tries to hold onto his feet.
When he manages to stand he is pushed down again before leaping up and swinging punches at both men.
A man can be heard in the background shouting what sounds like “Stokes, enough, enough”.
Stokes has reportedly told friends: “The guy had a bottle in his hand & was threatening us, was I supposed to wait until he smashed it in my face?’”
The England vice-captain is understood to have broken a finger in the fracas early on Monday morning. He was released from police cells without charge but remains under investigation. Hales attended a police station voluntarily.
Officers, who will quiz both men again later this week, yesterday appealed for witnesses to the punch-up.
The pair had been drinking in Bristol after England’s second one-day international win over the West Indies on Sunday. The fight began outside a club in the Clifton Triangle area at 2.35am.
After seeing the footage former England Test captain Michael Vaughan said Stokes needs to “look at himself in the mirror. I just don’t understand why he’d want to be in a bar at 2.30 on a Monday morning before a game on Wednesday. He’s putting himself in a place where he’s a target.
“I was gobsmacked when I saw the video. I couldn’t really believe what I was watching.” Stokes – due to marry longapparently term partner and mother of his two young children Clare Ratcliffe on October 14 – is said to be “devastated, fragile and aware of the magnitude of what has happened”.
He has apologised “profusely” to cricket chiefs.
In a statement yesterday they said: “Ben Stokes and Alex Hales will not be considered for selection for international matches until further notice. Each remains on full pay pending further ECB investigation.”
New Zealand-born Stokes is no stranger to controversy. In 2013 he was sent home from a Lions tour of Australia after flouting late-night drinking rules.
And in 2014 he broke his right hand punching a locker in response to being run out for a duck during a one-day international in Barbados. Last month a stump mic picked up Stokes wearing during the Headingley Test against the West Indies. He pleaded guilty to a breach of the ICC disciplinary code and received one demerit point. It took his total to three, one off an international ban.
Should he definitively be ruled out of the Australia tour, it would be a huge blow for England whose chances of defending the Ashes Down Under have already been questioned.
He needs to look in the mirror. I could not believe the video MICHAEL VAUGHAN FORMER TEST CAPTAIN
INTERNATIONAL sportsmen must face up to their responsibilities as role models for adoring young fans.
Everybody is entitled to a private life but when it spills into the public sphere, as it has with cricketer Ben Stokes, then governing bodies are required to make tough calls.
Durham and England’s Stokes is a worldclass bowler and batsman, and we wish that all his aggression was channelled into the game he loves and commands.
Nobody should prejudge his behaviour or that of Alex Hales, also dropped by England, until the full facts are known but a video nasty left cricket’s selectors with no alternative.