TREVOR Bayliss is confident England’s minds are uncluttered by the Ben Stokes debacle as they prepare for the imminent Ashes challenge ahead without their match-winning all-rounder.
Stokes is back in England, awaiting news on whether he will be charged over an incident last month that saw him arrested by Avon and Somerset Police on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm and placed under investigation.
A Cricket Discipline Commission inquiry will follow, under England and Wales Cricket Board policy, all of which indicates a timeline to prevent Stokes joining the 16-man squad at any point during a series which ends in Sydney on January 8.
As England settle in Perth, where they will open their campaign with a two-day tour match against a Western Australia XI, coach Bayliss acknowledged it had been a “difficult” past month since Stokes’s arrest in Bristol in the early hours of September 25.
Stokes’ absence is felt, of course, and will continue to be – but England will not fret about circumstances which have spiralled beyond their control.
“Everyone’s been concentrating on what we need to do, to win this series,” said Bayliss.
“You lose a player of Ben’s calibre, and it will make a bit of a difference.
“So we’re going to have to work out a different combination for the first Test ... and we’ve got three games to sort that out.
“I’m quite confident we can come up with a team that’s more than capable of winning.”
The players themselves have worked out if they need to do anything differently off the pitch.
Bayliss said: “There’s been no set curfews ... I think they’re just sensible rulings, to me what we should have been sticking to anyway.
“The players have sat down and had a chat, and they’re the ones who’ve come up with it.”
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