---
title: "Root says England keep making 'stupid mistakes' away from the game after Carse is handcuffed"
description: "The fast bowler was led away by police after an incident at a nightclub in Derby on Saturday and has been referred to the Cricket Regulator. The captain, whose side had just won, says the problem is the pattern rather than the night."
category: "Sports"
category_url: https://newsparlor.com/category/sports
author: "Elena Castro"
published: 2026-08-25T16:36:38.000Z
updated: 2026-08-25T16:36:38.000Z
canonical: https://newsparlor.com/article/root-says-england-keep-making-stupid-mistakes-away-from-the-game-after-carse-is-
tags: ["cricket", "england", "joe-root", "discipline", "test-cricket"]
---
# Root says England keep making 'stupid mistakes' away from the game after Carse is handcuffed

The fast bowler was led away by police after an incident at a nightclub in Derby on Saturday and has been referred to the Cricket Regulator. The captain, whose side had just won, says the problem is the pattern rather than the night.

Brydon Carse was led away in handcuffs by police after an incident at a nightclub in Derby on Saturday, [Al Jazeera reports](https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/8/25/root-hacked-off-by-england-cricket-team-after-police-handcuff-carse). He has been referred to the Cricket Regulator and dropped from the England squad for the second Test against Pakistan. He had not been selected for the first.

We are stating what is on the record and nothing more. The account describes a police action and a referral. It does not say Carse has been arrested, charged with anything or found to have done anything, and neither do we.

## What the captain actually objected to

Joe Root had just won his return match as Test captain. "If I'm being brutally honest, I'm really hacked off," he said. "I'm really disappointed that after last week's performance, we're sat here and we're talking about something that is not related to it at all."

He then made the distinction that gives the story its shape: "It's not the isolated incident itself. It's the fact we continuously keep making stupid mistakes away from the game and it's detracting from what we are doing on the field."

That is a complaint about a pattern, not a verdict on one player. It follows a run of alcohol-related episodes involving England players after a difficult tour of New Zealand and Australia in late 2025, which the report says involved Harry Brook, Ben Duckett, Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson.

## The choice Root has made

He rejected imposing a strict curfew, saying he prefers a culture change driven by the players themselves.

Both approaches are defensible and both have obvious failure modes. A curfew is enforceable and immediate, and treats adult professionals as people who must be supervised. Player-led culture change asks the group to police itself, which works when the senior players are willing and fails silently when they are not.

Root has been captain of this side before and is choosing the harder method a second time, having watched the first attempt produce this run of incidents. That is either conviction or optimism, and the next few months will indicate which.

## What we could not establish

We could not establish what happened at the nightclub, whether Carse was arrested or charged, what the Cricket Regulator's referral covers, whether he has commented, or how long he will be out of the squad. We verified this account from a single publication.

## Sources

- [Root 'hacked off' by England cricket team after police handcuff Carse](https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/8/25/root-hacked-off-by-england-cricket-team-after-police-handcuff-carse)