Bunker mentality
Cricketer Hales hits golf course after failing to tell squad boss brawling team-mate Stokes is in a cell
CRICKETER Alex Hales fled to play golf without telling England supremo Andrew Strauss that his team-mate Ben Stokes had been banged up in a police cell, it has emerged.
Stokes, 26, was arrested in the early hours of last Monday following a brawl outside a nightclub in Bristol.
But Hales, who was present at the bust-up, failed to notify director of cricket Strauss about it before he headed to a golf course 120 miles away.
It is also understood that the first Stokes’ partner Clare Radcliffe knew about him being in custody was when she got a call from the police station.
Stokes’ fiancee Clare, mother of their two children, was staying at team hotel The Bristol on the night of the row and was unaware of what had happened to him outside the Mbargo nightspot.
The fact Hales went off to play golf after Stokes had been arrested has raised eyebrows among senior English Cricket Board officials.
Batsman Hales, 28, who plays county cricket for Nottinghamshire, took to the greens at The Grove, a swish hotel and spa resort in Rickmansworth, Herts.
It is understood Strauss called him while he was playing golf.
Hales went on Twitter afterwards to say: “Big thank you to @TheGroveHotel for sorting the round today. Such an amazing course!”
Hales’s representative said: “You can see on his Twitter that he played golf that day, that is for the world to see. He wasn’t arrested or anything, everyone can see he played golf, but on the rest of it I have no comment.
“I wasn’t there, I don’t know the exact details. That’s it.”
Hales has been a regular member of the England one-day squads but has not been selected for the Ashes Test tour to Australia, starting next month.
Video footage from outside the nightclub shows all-rounder Stokes appearing to step in and defend Hales in an ugly scene which led to a 26-year-old needing hospital treatment.
The players had spent the evening out drinking after England’s emphatic 124-run win over the West Indies, in which Stokes scored 73. Stokes was arrested on suspicion of actual bodily harm, while Hales was free to return to the team hotel. He will have his reasons for heading out to play golf after such an incident but the backlash from it could be strong. Stokes’ fiancee Clare had earlier spent the day watching the one-day international against the Windies. Clare had posted photos on instagram of her day out with friends. But it is understood she did not venture out late on the night of the incident.