India, June 12 -- English cricket is back in a mess. Having just dealt with a shambolic Ashes tour featuring reports of excessive drinking and unprofessionalism, the England and Wales Cricket Board is fighting another fire just one week into the international summer. This time, the captain is at the heart of it all.

Ben Stokes, for so long the face of the English game, has been dropped from the test team after breaking a curfew he helped to draw up himself by going on a night out with teammate Gus Atkinson to celebrate a victory over New Zealand in the first match of the series on Sunday.

Stokes' precise involvement in what the ECB is describing as an "incident" after midnight in a London nightclub isn't fully clear. What is clear, howe...