Ashes series: Cook admits England slow to realise they need to change

England’s Alastair Cook concedes that the footage of Ben Stokes in an ugly street brawl has changed the world for the team.

England’s Alastair Cook in the nets at the WACA Ground in Perth. Picture: AAP.

Former England captain Alastair Cook says the footage of Ben Stokes in an ugly street brawl has changed the world for the team.

The problem is that it has taken two Tests and two subsequent incidents for the outfit to realise how much things have shifted.

But Cook says it is unfair to suggest there is a problem with a drinking culture in the team.

Since Stokes was arrested, the side has been involved in a number of minor incidents.

Jonathan Bairstow’s apparently friendly “headbutt” of Cameron Bancroft on the first night of the tour in Perth led to a midnight curfew. That was lifted for one night when the squad arrived back in Perth on the weekend and within hours, Ben Duckett had poured a drink over James Anderson.

Duckett has been fined, suspended and placed on a final warning and the team was read the riot act. England coach Trevor Bayliss said some were facing the axe at the end of the series.

Cook said yesterday: “The world has obviously changed for the England cricket team in September and it has probably taken us a couple of months to realise that.

“And I think these last two incidents have probably proven that.

“I’ve seen the words written down ‘trivial’, ‘a misdemeanour at best’, ‘very low key’ but since the Stokesy thing in September, times have changed for the English cricket team.

“It’s sad because we’ve always been a bit different from football and been able to go under the radar a bit — enjoy playing cricket for England and also enjoy seeing the country outside of that. ­At the moment that has changed.”

England’s footballers have been known to block out entire venues when they drink and anybody who joins them must give up their mobile phone at the door.

Cook is set to play his 150th Test match tomorrow and wants people to know that the team is more committed than perceptions suggest.

“The one thing I will say about this England side, and that’s even changed since I was captain, I’ve never seen a team work as hard as this side is working,” he said. “Whether we win, lose or draw, whether we play well or we play rubbish, the effort from the guys is unbelievable.

“There’s a group of men in there, 16 or 17 of them who are desperately to do well.

“Trevor (Bayliss) is cancelling practice sessions after three and a half hours, four hours saying ‘you’ve got to stop now, you’re wasting energy, you’ve got to save it for the Test match’.

“And that’s just because people are desperate to do well. At the moment I don’t think we’re getting painted fairly in the media, of our culture.

“Clearly there’s been a couple of things which — I know it sounds silly me saying it — have been brought up in the media, but the world has changed after the September incident and it’s now down to us to adjust to it quickly and we can’t afford any more mistakes.

“Because we understand the state that it’s at, with the ECB and with sponsors and trying to make kids play cricket, which is what we want to do.”

Another former captain, ­Michael Vaughan, believes the idea of a curfew is stupid, but so too are players who returned to the scene of the Bairstow incident and got into trouble again.

“I hate the word curfew,” he said. “If you get to the stage where you have got to have curfews, you have got the wrong personnel.

“It’s now got to the stage where I would say no curfews at all, do whatever you wish to prepare yourself for that game of cricket, but if you bring any bad PR, whoever you are, on to the England cricket team you are sent home.

“If you bring a curfew and release the curfew it is like letting the wolves out, they go nuts. Let them be who they want to be, it’s their careers.”

Vaughan believes management is jumping at shadows.

“I think they are becoming a little bit scared the ECB are reacting before they need to,” he said.

Vaughan questioned why Duckett and others would be out drinking when he had a match two days later.

“You are playing for England on Saturday, this is Friday morning, are you giving yourself the best chance to go and get 150?” he said.

“England are getting bowled out in the Ashes, you get 150, who is to say he wouldn’t play on Thursday?

“If a player got injured in preparation, who is to say he isn’t on that tour to New Zealand?

“Look at Gary Ballance, he’s been carrying drinks for three weeks, you have got a chance to play on the Saturday and you go out until the early hours, are you giving yourself the best chance?”