3 minute read
History has changed. If you google “Ben Stokes nightclub incident,” you now see an entirely different Ben Stokes nightclub incident than the one that’s been at the top of the results page for the last nine years. If you’re catching up on the details, this new one – which we’ll call Ben Stokes Nightclub Incident 2.0 – also features Gus Atkinson and a Saracens rugby player.
“I used to love going out and celebrating with the lads. But we can do that in the hotel and I don’t miss it. I don’t feel that urge anymore. Once you make the transition to not doing it then you don’t miss it.
“It’s pointless. You get recognised and then, after someone has had a few ego boosters, a few vodka and whatevers, they feel they can come up to you and say whatever they feel. There are people ready to target you everywhere you go. I prefer staying in and chatting nonsense with my team-mates.”
Sage words there. Sage words from a cricketer who knows the perils that unavoidably go hand in hand with heading out for a few jars after a Test win. Sage words from Ben Stokes in 2019.
The sentiments expressed above convey roughly where Ben Stokes Nightclub Incident 1.0 got filed away in the end. The crime wasn’t what he did. The crime was being there.
Yet here we are again. Or rather… there he was again.
What does this mean? Is this the end?
It has to be said, the Ben Stokes Nightclub Incident that has been freshly wiped from page one of the search results suggests these sorts of things certainly needn’t be a barrier to playing for England.
You may forget this because it’s such a weird fact, but on that occasion Stokes’ suspension was actually lifted the moment he was charged with a criminal offence. He was of course subsequently cleared of affray and later assumed the England Test captaincy. There might be a weird echo of this occurring elsewhere in the team.
Harry Brook was involved in another “incident” in a nightclub over the winter. It was a pretty major reason why the England players are now subject to a humiliating curfew, like schoolchildren or GPS-tagged convicted burglars.
Stokes surveyed that strict moral landscape and led by example and you feel he’ll be judged on that basis. This was not just going out and breaking a curfew, it was doing it as captain when England players were being restricted precisely because of previous incidents like the one that apparently ensued. That could be that for Stokes, unfortunately. Consequences.
Except this means that having very much set the ball rolling on this recent trend for misjudged night-time activity, Test vice captain Brook is now poised for a promotion because of the backdrop he himself created.
Nightclub incidents?
But none of these things are, to our mind, the most astonishing aspect. Maybe there are some reporting inaccuracies here, but the most staggering detail is surely the plain, straightforward fact that Ben Stokes went to a nightclub.
What year is it? 1998? Who honestly goes to nightclubs in this day and age? The youths certainly don’t – Gen Z are the most sober group of all – and middle-aged people obviously don’t either because they’re middle-aged.
You might argue that Ben Stokes falls between these groups, dodging both trends, but we’d argue he’s at the nexus, subject to both. Ben Stokes is a 35-year-old father of two who spends his entire working life mixing with 20-somethings. He has a foot in both camps, he knows both worlds, and yet he actively made a decision to go to a nightclub?
None of this makes sense.