(Photo by Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images)
The mournful look, the air of dignified, sorrowful gravitas and a room full of expectant journalists waiting to get an update on the latest crisis to hit English cricket.
Andrew Strauss has been here before, only this time what is happening with Ben Stokes is more serious and has the potential to be even more toxic than the Kevin Pietersen affair.
For all Pietersen’s faults, he was never the subject of a police investigation. He wasn’t subject to the court of public opinion either in the same way Stokes has been since disturbing video footage emerged of the street brawl that ended with him being arrested on suspicion of actual bodily harm in the early hours of Monday morning in Bristol.
Pietersen was at best misunderstood and unpopular with team-mates, at worst he was a divisive figure within the dressing-room who undermined the team.
He never spent a night in a police cell while on England duty as Stokes has. This current crisis developing right now is serious. How serious depends on what else emerges in the coming hours, days, weeks and months and whether Stokes finds himself answering criminal charges.
But Strauss knew the situation was bad when facing the media at the Oval on Wednesday morning.
This was initially meant to be a Press conference with national selector James Whitaker and coach Trevor Bayliss to announce the squad for this winter’s Ashes.
Instead, while we still got Whitaker and the Ashes squad – including Stokes – we also got England’s director of cricket giving us an update on a story that was rapidly becoming a moving target.
Strauss, speaking before the release of the video that evening, told us Stokes was still England’s Test vice-captain, but could be stripped of that honour depending on the results of an internal disciplinary review. “It is early days; I am just beginning to establish what went on over the course of that evening. The disciplinary process will flush that out.”
Asked whether the police investigation might prevent Stokes from travelling to Australia, Strauss admitted: “All we can do is deal with what we know and what we are in control of. We have no idea how things will pan out so we are judging our Ashes selection on the basis of what we are in control of.”
However, things started to tailspin rapidly out of control for Strauss and the ECB with the release of that video by The Sun newspaper that evening. Shell-shocked by its release, the ECB went into meltdown. This was now worse than anybody had feared. Overnight the Australian newspapers, hitherto quiet on the whole affair, started to lay the boot in.
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph got the ball rolling, saying: “As it stands, England’s lack of action against Stokes looks embarrassing compared to the swift action taken by Cricket Australia back in 2013 when David Warner was caught up in a comparatively minor nightclub scuffle with England counterpart Joe Root.”
The Melbourne Age then chimed in, remarking: “England’s desperate desire to win the series in Australia can be measured by Stokes not having been sacked. He cannot possibly tour Australia and must face a lengthy ban from cricket.
“England’s leaders have only to ask themselves how they would deal with this incident if it involved Mason Crane, Craig Overton, James Vince, or any other of the fringe Test candidates coming to Australia? If any of those players had done what Stokes is alleged to have done, would their names still be on the squad list?”
These weren’t merely Ashes mind-games, but arguments with merit. What were the ECB doing? Other than a brief statement shortly after the release of The Sun video, saying they would respect the police investigation, they fell silent until mid-afternoon on Thursday when they announced both Stokes and Alex Hales, with his team-mate that night, would not be available for selection until further notice.
The internal investigation Strauss took charge of on Wednesday had now been passed to the ECB’s Cricket Disciplinary Commission, headed by Tim O’Gorman.
That neatly lets Strauss off the hook, with any further punishment for Stokes now out of his hands.
Where this story goes next is anybody’s guess, but it is unlikely Stokes will be touring Australia.
