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Ben Stokes better player and England better team after Bristol incident, says Sir Andrew Strauss

"We have seen some outrageous performances from him over the last 12 months or so. That moment could have destroyed his England career and he is now a better player for going through it"

Monday 6 April 2020 15:53, UK

Sir Andrew Strauss says the Ben Stokes episode in Bristol has made him a better cricketer and improved England's team culture.

Stokes was arrested for an incident outside a nightclub in September 2017 and subsequently missed the following winter's Ashes tour as England slipped to a 4-0 series defeat in Australia.

The all-rounder was acquitted of affray in August 2018 and has since helped England win a thrilling World Cup final at Lord's last July before scoring a superb Ashes hundred at Headingley in August.

Strauss, who was director of England cricket at the time of the event in Bristol, told the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast: "That was a massive spanner in the works for us all.

"It made us realise that no matter what you do on the park, there are certain things that can happen off the pitch that can be far more damaging than anything on it.

"Us losing a series is a bit of a step back but it's not a big deal, whereas losing our best player for an extended period of time, having to reshape the team, constantly having to bat off all these questions about the England team culture, drinking and all that stuff was incredibly damaging.

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"In retrospect, what happened to Ben was bit of a blessing in disguise. It forced the players to appreciate that culture was really important and not just something a coach or director of cricket wanted.

"It either takes us towards winning games consistently or away from that and we had Joe Root and Eoin Morgan, in particular, really buying into that and the England players taking ownership.

"By the time the World Cup came around there was a strong embedded way of being in that environment. You weren't just judged on your performance but how you were as an England player as well.

"It was horrible we had to go through the experience and for Ben it was a brutally tough period of his life. I think he is better for the experience and I think the whole England team culture is better for that experience.

"I had to walk that tightrope between doing what was right for the game and supporting our players.

"Ben was such an important part of our future, so it was how do we make him feel we are supporting him, yet have him appreciate what he has done is not acceptable and that there are consequences?

"It is up to others to decide whether we walked that tightrope effectively or not but I think Ben reacted in exactly the right way. He acted very maturely and has come out the other side.

"Having his England career taken away from him for a bit makes him appreciate it more and he is absolutely focused on making the best of it.

"We have seen some outrageous performances from him over the last 12 months or so. That moment could have destroyed his England career and he is now a better playing for going through it.

"I feel he has become comfortable with the idea that he is a superstar that people will turn to in times of crisis and expect him to do extraordinary things. If you get your head round that, the sky is the limit."

Strauss enforced stricter curfews on England's players after the Stokes incident and a number of other issues on the 2017-18 Ashes tour.

"Also thinking back to Jonny Bairstow and that headbutt during the Ashes, we kept putting ourselves in these positions because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, quite frankly," added Strauss, referring to a greeting Bairstow gave Australia's Cameron Bancroft in a Perth bar.

"I have always been one to trust players to make the right decisions but perhaps they needed more boundaries in place, more guidance to what is acceptable and what is not.

"The players kicked and screamed against that, they weren't happy about it, but now it's embedded in what we do. Before 12 o'clock is their time, after 12 o'clock is team time.

"If you avoid being out later than that, you won't get into trouble. With camera phones you are not anonymous anymore.

"You have to be conscious of the times we could do something really dumb and usually that is after 12 o'clock."