England’s cricketers will be subject to a midnight curfew for the rest of the winter following their ill discipline during the Ashes and the New Zealand tour that preceded it.
Although there will be no formal notification of rules for expected behaviour during the twin white-ball series versus Sri Lanka and next month’s Twenty20 World Cup, Daily Mail Sport understands they will be reminded of their responsibilities as international sportsmen upon arrival in Colombo.
One guideline that Harry Brook’s squad, who were due to fly out of London on Sunday, will have to adhere to, however, is ensuring that they are back on team hotel premises before 12am daily unless agreed otherwise in advance.
Multiple drinking incidents blighted the 3-0 one-day whitewashing by New Zealand and 4-1 capitulation in five Test matches across seven weeks in Australia.
During a six-day mid-series Ashes break in Noosa compared to a stag do by some witnesses, video footage emerged of an inebriated Ben Duckett seemingly uncertain of either where he was or where he needed to get to late at night.
There were also reports of high alcohol consumption by England players during their time in Perth, where they stayed in a casino complex hotel.
Then there was the matter of Brook being fined the maximum £30,000, and coming close to losing the white-ball captaincy, following an altercation with a nightclub bouncer hours before the third and final ODI defeat by the Black Caps in Wellington.
Others present at the scene were not named, after Brook self-reported himself to the team management, but images of a group of players at a roof top bar did the rounds on social media.
One school of thought is that such incidents would have been avoided if a midnight curfew had been in place, as it used to be before Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took over the running of the Test team four years ago
Rob Key’s predecessor as managing director of cricket, Andrew Strauss, brought the curfew in after an alleged head-butt by Jonny Bairstow on Australia’s Cameron Bancroft in the lead-up to the 2017-18 Ashes.
But Stokes and McCullum scrapped it, believing players should be free to make their own life choices.
While treating them like adults back-fired in Australasia, the England hierarchy are also wary of creating the kind of siege mentality that developed during Covid series between 2020-22, as they attempt to put a wretched run of results behind them by winning a fourth global title against the odds in early March.
One change from the tour of Australia is the inclusion of Carl Hopkinson as fielding coach for the T20 section of the Sri Lanka trip and World Cup.
England drew attention to the lack of a fielding coach when they dropped 17 catches against Australia – including five in a single session in the second Test in Brisbane.
Hopkinson, 44, spent six years as a permanent member of the backroom staff in England’s limited-overs set up but was stood down in November 2024 alongside Richard Dawson when McCullum assumed control of ODIs and T20s.
David Saker extends his bowling consultancy into the 50-over series before handing over to Tim Southee midway through the Sri Lanka trip.
McCullum’s two established assistant coaches Marcus Trescothick and Jeetan Patel are retained but it is the return of Hopkinson – who was due to be with the England Under-19s side in the ongoing World Cup in Zimbabwe, but has changed plans – that has caught the eye so soon after a review of England’s practice and preparation was launched.
