English cricket has quickly found itself in another mess. Ben Stokes is in the middle of it

This time, the captain is at the heart of it all.

Ben Stokes, for so long the face of the English game, has been dropped from the test team after breaking a curfew he helped to draw up himself by going on a night out with teammate Gus Atkinson to celebrate a victory over New Zealand in the first match of the series on Sunday.

Stokes’ precise involvement in what the ECB is describing as an “incident” after midnight in a London nightclub isn't fully clear.

What is clear, however, is that his presence there has left England's leadership group in another sticky situation — just when they were looking to show they had learnt their lesson.

Why was English cricket in a rebuilding phase?

This summer was supposed to be a reset for England after an Ashes tour Down Under that was humiliating on and off the field.

Not only did England lose 4-1, the team's players came under scrutiny for their lack of professionalism — notably because of its apparent drinking culture.

A video emerged appearing to show Ben Duckett disorientated and unable to remember how to get back to the hotel. Another video on social media showed batter Jacob Bethell dancing in a club.

England was 2-0 down in the series by then. When the embarrassing tour was over, Harry Brook apologized for clashing with a nightclub bouncer during a short tour of New Zealand that preceded the Ashes. Brook, England's test vice captain and skipper of the ODI and T20 teams, was hit by the bouncer after being denied entry to the club.

No one from the leadership team — Stokes, coach Brendon McCullum and director of cricket Rob Key — lost their jobs following the post-Ashes review, with ECB chief executive Richard Gould saying: “I’ve seen the driving ambition and determination we’re lucky enough to have within our leadership group to take the lessons from the Ashes."

Stokes' night out with Atkinson

One of the decisions taken after the Ashes was to reimpose a midnight curfew on players and staff around games that was dropped in 2022. It didn't take long for that to be broken, by the captain of all people.

Stokes said in his post-match news conference after beating New Zealand at Lord's that "I won’t be really happy until I get to share a beer with the boys.”

That was early on Sunday afternoon. It seems he stayed out until after midnight and ended up with Atkinson in a club, where a member of England’s security staff was reportedly struck — and left bloodied and in need of medical attention, according to the BBC — by a rugby player from English club Saracens who was also out that night.

The ECB said in a statement on Monday that it was “investigating a breach of team protocols” and Stokes and Atkinson “were present at a nightclub in the early hours of Monday morning when an incident took place.”

On Wednesday, they were both dropped for the second test, amid reports that Stokes was weighing up his test future.

Where does it leave England?

For starters, without its inspirational captain.

England has chosen not to give the captaincy to Brook — just imagine the line of questioning in his first news conference as the team leader, given his recent disciplinary history — and instead reverted back to Joe Root, a safe pair of hands in many senses.

Root was the predecessor to Stokes as captain, giving up the honor in 2022 after a record 64 tests in charge. The captaincy was weighing on Root — England’s record test run-scorer — and the team was coming off winning just one of its previous 17 test matches for the country’s worst run since the 1980s.

However, in a crisis, Root is a solid choice to lean on. The ECB stressed he was “interim captain,” suggesting this wouldn't be a long-term solution.

It also leaves England without a bowler in Atkinson who cleaned up New Zealand's second innings with figures of 5-30 to clinch a hard-earned victory. Jofra Archer comes into the squad in his place having missed the first test while he was recuperating in Barbados after the Indian Premier League.

And what about Stokes?

That's the big question now.

A slew of former England captains — Michael Vaughan, Michael Atherton, Nasser Hussain — have all said what the 35-year-old Stokes has done is misguided but shouldn't be a sackable offense, and that they hope he stays on in the role.

There is a home Ashes series in 2027, which Stokes may view as a chance at redemption after last winter. It also gives him a year to regain some batting form after a dip over the past couple of years that has seen him make one century and two fifties in 23 test innings since November 2024.

Stokes is an England great, the key player in the country’s 50-over and T20 World Cup-winning teams from 2019 and 2022, and someone with 121 tests to his name.

Hussain said Stokes will be going through some dark times and believes he'll be asking himself if he has any more to give.

“I also have the feeling,” Hussain said on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast, “that in a few years' time, if you look back and say, ‘Why did Ben Stokes retire from the game of cricket? Why did one of our great leaders and captains and players retire? Because he broke a curfew that he himself set?’ I think that would be sad and not the right way to go out.”

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket