Captain Brook pays penalty for breaching team rule
HARRY BROOK has become the third Yorkshire player to be disciplined this winter by England.
England Under-19s dropped captain Brook for the final match of their World Cup campaign.
The 18-year-old batsman sat out England’s 32-run win over host nation New Zealand in Queenstown, with Will Jacks leading the side in his absence.
Coach Jon Lewis did not give any details about what Brook’s breach was, although it was not drink related.
Lewis said: “Harry missed the match because he broke a team rule, so we decided to leave him out and deal with it internally. We’ll let you know if anything happens after that.”
Brook had been averaging 119.5 in the Under-19 World Cup with 239 runs in five innings, including one century and two half-centuries.
However, he could not prevent England from being knocked out by Australia in the Super League quarter-finals, with the win over New Zealand coming in the playoff for seventh place.
English cricket has been hit by several disciplinary issues in recent months, including Ben Stokes’s much-publicised arrest, but Lewis was keen to point out that the Under-19 team had been “extremely well behaved” in New Zealand, adding: “If rules are broken then disciplinary action sometimes needs to be taken.”
Stokes missed the Ashes tour and faces a charge of affray on February 13 following an incident outside a Bristol nightclub in September.
The ECB fined and issued written warnings to Jonny Bairstow, Yorkshire team-mate Liam PLunkett and Jake Ball following an investigation into behaviour during the ODI series against the West Indies.
Bairstow found himself in the spotlight Down Under as well after greeting Cameron Bancroft with what the Australian opener described as a “head-butt” in a Perth bar on the first night of England’s tour in October.