England cricket discipline row: Broad and Anderson brand incidents ‘extreme and tiresome’

By Jack Shaw · Lord’s, London · Published: 22:40 BST

• Stuart Broad says eight of England’s 30 centrally contracted players have now been reprimanded or caught up in an off-field incident.
• Jimmy Anderson, England’s all-time leading wicket-taker, calls it “mind-numbing” that players keep putting themselves in those positions.
• Brydon Carse was left out of the second Test against Pakistan after being pictured in handcuffs outside a Derby bar.

The England cricket discipline row has a new and far more authoritative voice. Speaking at Lord’s at the unveiling of a joint portrait of the pair, Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson described the flood of negative stories around the Test squad’s drinking and socialising as “extreme and tiresome” — with Broad revealing that eight of England’s 30 centrally contracted players have now been reprimanded or involved in an incident.

What triggered the England cricket discipline row

The most recent case involves the Durham seamer Brydon Carse, who was pictured being led away from a bar in Derby in handcuffs in the early hours of Sunday morning. The 31-year-old was briefly arrested on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly before being “de-arrested”, and police continue to investigate an allegation of assault connected to the incident, according to the Guardian.

Carse was dropped from the squad for the second Test against Pakistan that began at Lord’s on Thursday — a match in which England, pegged back by Mohammad Abbas, recovered from 77-4 to close a truncated opening day on 248-9 thanks to half-centuries from Jamie Smith (61) and Jordan Cox (55). Carse spent the day taking two wickets for Durham against Gloucestershire instead. For the full chronological timeline of the summer’s incidents and reprimands, our aggregation partner ReadCricket is tracking the story day by day.

The expert angle: why this England cricket discipline row matters

Eight players from a pool of 30 is not a run of bad luck — it is a pattern, and Broad has now said so out loud. That is what gives this weight. England tour South Africa this winter and host Australia next summer, two assignments that have always found out sides whose habits are loose. Broad’s framing was pointed: he held up Joe Root as the template, then issued something close to an ultimatum.

“Joe Root spoke beautifully on this and is a brilliant example of how to do it. If you won’t listen to him and follow him, then this is not for you,” Broad said. “South Africa away and Australia at home — if you can’t commit every bit of your mind and body to wanting to perform on this field, then I don’t understand.”

Anderson was gentler but no less clear, noting that this is a young team which will learn from its mistakes while adding that it is “just mind-numbing that people can still be putting themselves in these positions”. Coming from two bowlers with a combined Test career at the very top of England’s record books — and with no incentive whatsoever to stir the pot — that is about as heavy as a nudge gets. The real damage is that the noise is now louder than the cricket: on a day when Smith and Cox dug England out of a hole at Lord’s, the story still belonged to a player who was not even selected.

Over to you

Is this a genuine culture problem inside the England camp, or a young squad being scrutinised more harshly than any generation before it? Tell us where you land.