Players who step out of line again face England axe
Bayliss lays down the law at squad meeting We have to rebuild trust with public, says Cook
Trevor Bayliss has warned his players that they will be dropped if there are any repeats of off-field misbehaviour as England get tough on discipline.
The Daily Telegraph understands that Bayliss, the England head coach, spoke to the senior players on Monday evening and the rest of the squad as a whole yesterday morning to make it clear that any more misdemeanours would not be tolerated and careers were at stake.
Privately, England believe the players are embarrassed over what happened in Perth last week, when Ben Duckett threw a drink over James Anderson. There was a sense of injustice and a feeling of being stitched up over the Jonny Bairstow “butt” early in the tour, but this time the players know they were in the wrong and have accepted that standards have to improve.
Next month, England name the squad for the New Zealand leg of the winter tour, the first chance for Joe Root, the captain, to establish his authority by moving on any potential troublemakers.
Root spoke to the players before their night out on Thursday, warning them to avoid any potentially embarrassing behaviour, and he is fuming that they let him down, exposing him to another barrage of questions over the culture of his team as he tries to focus on a Test match at the Waca, where Australia scent regaining the Ashes.
“It’s frustrating. We’ve spoken a lot about it. Trevor Bayliss has expressed his feelings and it’s about moving on now. We have a responsibility as players to make sure the talk is about the good cricket played by England,” said Root.
“I knew it [captaining in Australia] would be challenging. And I knew there would be stuff around the cricket, but not to this extent, if I’m brutally honest.”
Asked if he thought Anderson, at 35 and his vice-captain, should set a better example than being in a bar late at night with Duckett, Root agreed. “Yeah, maybe a little bit. A lot of people have spoken and given their views. His focus now has to be about leading that bowling attack and doing the right things on the field,” he said.
Curfews and rigid rules are not the way Bayliss or Root want to run their squad and those measures were imposed from above by an England and Wales Cricket Board worried about the image of the game as it starts to build its new, family-friendly Twenty20 tournament.
However, both captain and coach have accepted that the team live in a different world since the Ben Stokes arrest and higher standards are expected.
Even Alastair Cook, one of British sport’s cleanest, most dedicated characters, realises times have changed for cricket.
He also believes his 2013 Ashes win at home as captain was marred by a disconnect between the team and the public, summed up by the fact they could not understand the disgust some felt when players urinated on the pitch at the Oval.
“We can’t afford any more mistakes, because we understand the stakes, with the ECB and with sponsors, trying to make kids play cricket. You go back to 2013 when we won an Ashes series 3-0, but the public weren’t that happy. It was a strange one, as the captain of that,” he said. “There was a big disconnect between the players and the public, and over the last three or four years we’ve made a massive effort to get that connection back.
“I think people have seen that. Clearly, over the last couple of months, we’ve damaged that. We have to try to rebuild that a lot, because it’s so important to the players, and we’ve got to understand it quickly.
“Those last two incidents have proven that there is very little margin for error when you’ve had a beer. And to say that we’ve got a drinking culture in this team is very unfair.
“But we’ve just got to smarten up, and we’ve got to do it quickly, because there’s too much at stake. Not just one bloke’s career, but you always want to leave the side and the cap in a good place, after every tour and every game. People pay a lot of money to come and watch us here in Australia. At home, the support we get is fantastic. So we’ve got to build that trust back up.”
For Australia, England’s off-field concerns simply provide open goals to pile more pressure on a side who have been outclassed in the first two Tests.
In the absence of their own behavioural issues, Australia can focus simply on the cricket, and on a pitch where England have been crushed on their past seven visits.
The last of those, in 2013, was engineered by a stunning spell from Mitchell Johnson, and the left-armer may yet have an impact this time as an adviser to the current crop of Australia pace bowlers.
Josh Hazlewood revealed he had received some straightforward – and, for England, ominous – advice in preparation for the Waca this week.
“Bowl fast, and keep bowling short … pretty simple method from Johnno!” he said.