Stokes’ profile makes him a media target: Giles

LONDON: England’s director of cricket Ashley Giles has warned that there is no easy way to protect the team’s star players from the heightened profile that comes with their summer’s successes, after a week in which Ben Stokes once again attracted media attention for all the wrong reasons.

Stokes was last week named as the PCA’s Player of the Year following his remarkable feats during the World Cup and Ashes.However, he was subsequently forced to rebut claims that he had assaulted his wife, Clare, during the PCA event, after paparazzi photos were published on a website showing him raising his hand to his wife’s face.

That incident followed the publication, last month, of a front-page story in The Sun, detailing a family tragedy that occurred in Stokes’ native New Zealand, three years before he was born. Stokes has since launched legal proceedings against the newspaper, citing invasion of privacy.

But, with England due to tour New Zealand next month (Stokes is missing the T20I leg but will be involved in the Tests), the issue is doubtless likely to resurface - not least because Stokes appears to have attained a level of interest to the tabloid press that matches his fellow England all-rounder, Ian Botham, in the 1980s.

England are also due to make two trips to Australia in the next 24 months - a country that Stokes has not toured since missing the 2017-18 Ashes in the wake of his arrest in Bristol - and Giles admitted that the pressures that come at the very top of the game are far removed from those that he fleetingly experienced in 2005, as part of the last England team to truly capture the public’s imagination.

“I think everything is wrapped up for these guys now,” said Giles. “Success brings money, brings more pressures, and the pressures are certainly far different to what we experienced when we played.

“There’s a lot of good stuff there they get, but there’s also a lot of negative stuff. Part of my job is to protect them from that, but how exactly do you do that? I don’t know. You can’t always watch them or their families 24 hours a day. But we’re certainly there for them and player welfare and support is a big thing for us going forward.

“It’s just a worry, in some sense, how his profile can be used against him, and how susceptible they are as a family to this,” Giles added. “The bigger your profile the more difficult it can become.” Within hours of the photos appearing on a website, Clare Stokes dismissed the story as “nonsense”.

“I spoke to both of them the other night,” said Giles.“I was pretty sure, as soon as I saw the story, there was nothing in it. They were obviously concerned because domestic violence is a really serious issue, and we’re not making light of that at all. But in this instance it’s a very happy couple having some fun, and a picture telling a thousand words, but just the wrong ones.”