Australian-born Worcestershire cricketer Alex Hepburn has denied raping a sleeping woman.

Hepburn has been charged with assaulting the woman after she reportedly had consensual sex with his former teammate Joe Clarke. The 23-year-old Hepburn was allegedly motivated by a Whatsapp group chat named ‘stat chat’ used to keep a record of sex with women.

‘After I had got myself into bed, that’s when I first realised that there was a woman in the bed. She rolled over towards me. She kissed me,’ Hepburn told the Worcester crown court.

‘Her eyes were open before we kissed. We kissed on the lips for a matter of seconds. We had sex. She was enjoying it because she was actively engaging with me.

‘I was under the impression that what we had been doing was absolutely normal. She just kept asking, “Where is Joe? Where is Joe?” I am completely embarrassed by stat chat.’

Prosecutor Miranda Moore QC said: ‘This is a case about you, fired up by this “game” you were so keen to play with your mates, taking advantage of a girl that you knew was asleep in Joe’s bed.

‘The reason you are crying now is the world knows how you behave.

‘In some ways this a sad indictment of a sport always thought of as a sport of gentlemen. The behaviour of these young men was anything but.

‘Sadly, what he does is treat women like disposable objects. She was some disposable object he found in his friend’s bed.’

Hepburn last played for Worcestershire in August 2017 during the Natwest T20 Blast.

Photo: Getty