I come to bury Ben, not to praise him… but…

Ben Stokes is an England cricketer. Probably, currently, The England Cricketer. And much as you ‘can choose your friends but not your family’, so you can’t either choose who the greatest player of a generation, who is probably the only man in England who can single-handedly win a test match and who is the person that England cricket depends upon more than all others. Big players step up in Big games. And Ben Stokes does that.

Unfortunately, what he also does is drink too much at night and become totally obnoxious, abusive, insulting and use his not insubstantial build to bully and punch people outside nightclubs. And he’s stupid enough to do so whilst being filmed. Not that he knew. He didn’t know much of anything, other than he wanted to get into a nightclub that had closed its admission at 2am. So after offering ‘300 quid’ to the doorman as a bribe and been rejected, he vented his anger and frustration on all and sundry, culminating in the systematic beating of 2 guys.

He can deny it, his QC can offer all sorts of arguments, but its hard to plead ‘self-defence’ when you’re on film chasing someone across the street with your fists primed. And he’s guilty as hell and horrible as satan/corbyn/pick-your-hate-figure (then add tattoos) and must surely be found so by the court.

Yet there is some mitigation in sentencing, surely? You hear that drivers can’t get banned for speeding because they need their cars to take sick mothers for chemotherapy every week. Or custodial time reduced to community service and suspended sentence because of ‘this person’s value to society’.

Well, much as I kind’a hate Ben Stokes, if nothing else, for lacking the imagination to be a person beyond the scowling, inked-up scum-bag thug persona he likes to project, I think there are questions about banging him up (if found guilty, obvs) for his errors. Because if some petty crim gets off because the company he owns employs 27 people who will all suffer as a consequence, should he be incarcerated, then Ben Stokes, as he did last week, is capable of ending the suffering of an entire cricketing nation. He put a smile on the face of millions of people. Ok, not Indian people but that’s sport, not racism.

Without Stokes, as shown in the Ashes series, we can’t win. With him, we do. So PLEASE your honour, give him a big fine. A suspended sentence. Give him one of those tracker things to wear round his ankle that gives him 50,000 volts if he stays out past 9 o’clock or drinks alcohol. As long as it doesn’t affect his bowling. But if you send him to prison (where he absolutely fucking belongs) then do it after the cricket season. Otherwise its just… not cricket.

Happy lenient Wednesday

A xxxx