 "England's Harry Brook reacts after he was dismissed during play on day four of the fifth and final Ashes cricket test between England and Australia in Sydney, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. AP")
England white ball captain Harry Brook should have been suspended for the game against New Zealand ahead of which he was engaged in a clash with a nightclub bouncer, believes former Three Lions skipper Michael Vaughan.
The former England captain said that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) pushed the incident “under the carpet” and Brook was let go off easily. The England white ball skipper was reportedly given a “final warning” and handed a fine of £30,000 ($40,330) the maximum amount possible by the ECB for the incident.
‘Brook should have been suspended’
The middle-order batter Brook clashed with a bouncer outside a nightclub after being denied entry on October 31 last year. The incident happened just hours before England played New Zealand in an ODI where Brook could only score six runs and his team lost the match.
Vaughan believes such incidents put a big question mark on team’s preparation for the Ashes which came immediately after the New Zealand series.
“The ECB pushed it under the carpet," Vaughan alleged while speaking on Fox Cricket during a Big Bash League match. “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.”
England lost the Ashes 4-1 and their preparation was consistently questioned. Vaughan said that the board should have acted tough against Brook and suspended him for the game before which the incident took place.
“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 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.
Quick Reads
View All“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.