‘He should’ve been suspended for that game’: Michael Vaughan on Harry Brook nightclub incident

England's Harry Brook runs to find the ball during play on day four of the fifth and final Ashes cricket test between England and Australia in Sydney, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

With controversy swirling around Harry Brook after reports broke that he was involved in a late-night fight with a nightclub bouncer during the tour of New Zealand, where England lost 3-0, former England player Michael Vaughan has once again come down hard on the cricket board’s handling of the situation.

“The ECB pushed it under the carpet. They said they threw the kitchen sink in with a fine, but for it to have come out just a couple of days ago on the back of a poor Ashes series where performance levels have been indifferent, the loose nature of the preparation has been a big question mark about the team,” Vaughan told Fox Cricket during a Big Bash League match.

“My experience from these kinds (of incidents) is you’ve got to hit the nail on the head at the time it happens, because once it comes out afterwards, ‘why did they brush it under the carpet’? So the England captain was able to go out the night before have a fracas with a bouncer then still play – probably on the same day. That can’t be right … He should’ve been suspended for that game. Then you deal with it there and then. I had no problems with Noosa, but I do have a problem with Noosa on the back of them hiding something in New Zealand that they didn’t tell us about. So clearly there’s a lot of conversations to be had and understanding of what is right and what is wrong. When I see things like that and hear things like that, I always go: ‘What don’t we know?,’ he added.

Vaughan also dismissed the suggestion that the incident was kept hidden so that it does not derail the Ashes, which incidentally happened after the New Zealand tour.

“I think there’ll be a lot of conversations over the next week or two about the leadership group – and that goes right to the highest level, because the CEO and the chairman of the ECB would’ve known about that. I get your point in terms of trying to hide it from the Ashes because you don’t want it to derail you, but you could probably argue it did derail the Ashes – because it wasn’t sorted there and then and players had this loose nature for a good few weeks,” he said.