Hales was included in England’s preliminary 15-strong Cricket World Cup squad, but was axed after details emerged of his 21-day suspension for a second violation of the ECB’s recreational drugs use policy. In an extract from On Fire, Stokes’ book on England’s spectacular 2019 summer, serialised in the Mirror, Stokes expanded on the reaction of the England camp to the revelation.

“We had been a tight-knit team throughout Eoin Morgan’s captaincy period and so reading the finer details in a newspaper was not a great way for us all to find out,” Stokes wrote.

“We were within sight of the prize we’d worked so hard for and we wanted our heads to be on winning the World Cup, not thinking about other issues. What was bigger? What was more important? In the end, it came down to us protecting the culture and environment we had built.”

For Stokes, his experience of dealing with media storms, including the one which ensued after the brawl in Bristol that resulted in him missing England’s 2017/18 Ashes tour to Australia, taught him the impact that negative press can have on a group’s mentality.

“The thing I hated most throughout that period of time was that other players were constantly being asked questions about me,” he wrote. “That really upset me. There are only so many times you can see your team-mates having to answer questions that they really shouldn’t have to, and don’t know much about, before it really gets to you.

“I was left wondering when it was all going to stop. Unfortunately, it would have been a similar case if Alex had been in our World Cup squad.”