Harry Brook had managed just 358 runs in five Tests of recent Ashes with two fifties.
Former England cricketer Michael Vaughan has stated that the ECB was wrong in brushing off the nightclub incident featuring Harry Brook, the England Test vice-captain and white-ball captain should’ve been suspended for the first offense.
The former England captain said that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) brushed the event "under the carpet" and let Brook off lightly.
The England white-ball skipper was reportedly given a "final warning" and fined £30,000 ($40,330), the maximum sum allowed by the ECB for the incident.
Brook, a middle-order batter, fought with a bouncer outside a nightclub after being denied admittance on October 31 last year. The incident occurred just hours before England's one-day international against New Zealand, in which Brook scored only six runs and his team lost.
Vaughan believes such incidents put a big question mark on the team’s preparation for the Ashes, which came immediately after the New Zealand series.
“The ECB pushed it under the carpet. They said they threw the kitchen sink in with a fine, but for it to have come out just a couple of days ago on the back of a poor Ashes series where performance levels have been indifferent, the loose nature of the preparation has been a big question mark about the team,” Vaughan alleged while speaking on Fox Cricket during a BBL match.
England suffered a 4-1 Ashes series loss to Australia, and their preparation, or lack thereof, became a big issue. According to Vaughan, the board ought to have been harsh with Brook and suspended him for the game before the event.
“My experience from these kinds (of incidents) is you’ve got to hit the nail on the head at the time it happens, because once it comes out afterwards, ‘Why did they brush it under the carpet?’ So the England captain was able to go out the night before, have a fracas with a bouncer, and then still play—probably on the same day.
That can’t be right … He should’ve been suspended for that game. Then you deal with it there and then. I had no problems with Noosa, but I do have a problem with Noosa on the back of them hiding something in New Zealand that they didn’t tell us about," he added.
“I think there’ll be a lot of conversations over the next week or two about the leadership group—and that goes right to the highest level, because the CEO and the chairman of the ECB would’ve known about that. I get your point in terms of trying to hide it from the Ashes because you don’t want it to derail you, but you could probably argue it did derail the Ashes—because it wasn’t sorted there and then, and players had this loose nature for a good few weeks,” he said.
Harry Brook managed 358 runs in 10 innings in the recent Ashes Test series with two fifties at an average of 39.77 and a best score of 84.