Stokes and Hales face final hearing
Ben Stokes and Alex Hales will face a cricket disciplinary hearing today as the long-running saga over their involvement in a Bristol street fight reaches a conclusion.
A two-day hearing in London is expected to end with an announcement on Friday of sanctions which can include an unlimited fine and suspension from international cricket right up to terminating a player’s registration with the England and Wales Cricket Board.
Both are charged with two counts of bringing the game into disrepute and will face a three- man disciplinary panel chaired by Tim O’gorman, a former Derbyshire player. Both are expected to plead not guilty. They will give evidence and will have legal representation.
The players will have 14 days to appeal any sanctions in the event of a guilty verdict. Bans would apply to matches played under the auspices of the ECB and England, meaning that both could be suspended for a portion of the West Indies tour in January. The squad for the tour, which includes three Tests and a full one-day series, will be announced on Monday.
Stokes was arrested in the early hours of Sept 25 last year and charged in January with affray alongside two other men, after a fight outside the Mbargo nightclub in Bristol. One man suffered a fractured eye socket in the incident.
Several other England players were fined by the ECB for being out late at night, celebrating a series win over West Indies. Hales and Stokes were both suspended for the final two games of the summer and later charged by the board.
Stokes will argue he did nothing wrong and was found not guilty of affray at Bristol Crown Court in August after more than a week of evidence. At the time of the incident there was no official curfew for the England team. But the incident cast a shadow over England’s dismal Ashes tour and headlines generated by it damaged the standing of the game, hence the disrepute charges.
Stokes subsequently missed the tour to Australia and if he were to be found guilty at the hearing, he would hope matches he has already missed would be taken into account when any suspension was decided. Hales only missed the two ODIS against West Indies and may fear he will be hit with a longer ban.
The cricket discipline commission is independent of the ECB, although it has worked around England’s schedule with this case conveniently held between tours.
The jury at Bristol Crown Court were told that Stokes was the main aggressor and it was alleged that he had “lost control” in a “sustained episode of significant violence”. But he claimed he was acting in selfdefence and was standing up for Hales, who had been attacked with a bottle, and two gay men who were being abused in the street.
Hales was not arrested but it was claimed in court that CCTV footage showed him kicking a man in the head while he lay on the ground.