The Hangover Part II

PL on English cricket's day after the night before

The pub before the nighclub

As you get older, a hangover can take days to shake. The regret, the depression, the sick feeling in your stomach, the throbbing head. “Will I ever learn?” you ask yourself with no intention of eliciting an honest answer.

English cricket has rested its sore noggin on the pillow for another night of uneasy dreams, a sword hanging over its captain’s cot. Today is the day it deals with the consequences.

England is expected to announce its side for the second Test against New Zealand today. Captain Ben Stokes and bowler Gus Atkinson are unlikely to be part of it. The bigger question is, however, if Stokes’ name will ever be on a team list again, with or without the captain’s initial beside it. There are real concerns that the all-rounder might have had enough and it’s time for another flawed Superman.

England and its skipper find themselves in a mess that there’s no easy way out of. You can’t undo what’s been done; there’s no removing that tattoo on the red skin of its forehead after the Big Night Out, the one that says, well, what would it say? “Do as I say, not as I do”? “Oops, I did it again”? “Born Looser”? (apologies to Leunig), “There’s no room for sober men in my dressing room”? “Curfews are for losers”?