England cricket is “establishing the facts” after a video of Ashes opening batter Ben Duckett drunk and slurring his words in Noosa went viral.
With the Noosa getaway already under heavy scrutiny after claims emerged that it resembled a “stag do”, a video emerged of Duckett engaging with a fan calling himself Sam, plus two women. Duckett was asked if he knew how to get home and replied: “No.”
Sam poked fun at him by suggesting he take an Uber to the practice nets, saying: “It’s probably for the best … We’re losing 2-0.” Duckett replied by calling him a “prick”.
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An ECB spokesman said: “We are aware of content circulating on social media. We have high expectations for behaviour, accepting that players are often under intense levels of scrutiny, with established processes that we follow when conduct falls below expectations. We also support players that need assistance. We will not comment further at this stage while we establish the facts.”
The video emerged just hours after England managing director of cricket Rob Key vowed to investigate claims of excessive drinking on the four-day break in Noosa. The team went there after falling to a 2-0 series deficit in Brisbane, and they afterwards lost the Ashes series by falling to 3-0 with a loss in Adelaide.
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Duckett has had a poor series atop the batting order, averaging 16.16 with a best score of 29. At age 31 and with 41 Tests to his credit, he has been a mainstay of the Test team for the past three years under coach Brendon McCullum.
The left-hander has off-field form in Australia, albeit a long time ago. During the 2017-18 tour, Duckett — then aged 23 — poured a drink over the head of teammate James Anderson in Perth and was provisionally suspended by the ECB.
Key, who did not travel with the team to Noosa, spoke at length about reports around the trip shortly before the Duckett video came to light. He said that excess drinking on an Ashes tour was “completely unacceptable” but it was his understanding that the players were “very well behaved”.
“I’ve actually read what’s happened, or what’s been written in the last day or so,” Key said.
“And if it goes into where they’re drinking lots and it’s a stag do, all of that type of stuff, that’s completely unacceptable. I’m not a drinker, I think a drinking culture doesn’t help anyone in any stretch whatsoever. I have no issue with the Noosa trip if it was to get away and just throw your phone away, down tools, go on the beach, all of that stuff.
“And we’ve added the security, we’ve got enough ways of finding out exactly what happened and everything that I’ve heard so far is that they sat down, had lunch, had dinner, didn’t go out late, all of that, had the odd drink, I don’t mind that. If it goes past that, then that’s an issue as far as I’m concerned. That’s what we’ll find out.
“If there’s things where people are saying that our players went out and drank excessively then of course we’ll be looking into that. I’m not a drinker. Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol for an international cricket team is not something that I’d expect to see at any stage. And it would be a fault not to look into what happened there. But from everything that I’ve heard so far, they actually were pretty well behaved. Very well behaved.”
Key also confirmed that two players had been given informal warnings about excessive drinking during the white-ball tour of New Zealand that preceded the Ashes.
Vice-captain Harry Brook and Jacob Bethell, who could play the Boxing Day Test at the expense of Ollie Pope, were warned after a late-night drinking session before an ODI in Wellington.
“There wasn’t any formal action,” Key said.
“There’s a whole process in place for what you do if they’re out of line. I didn’t feel like that was worthy of formal warnings but it was probably worthy of informal ones. That was a bit of a wake-up call for what they were going into.”
