England cricketers Ben Stokes and Alex Hales have been charged by the cricket discipline commission for bringing the game into disrepute.

The charges are for Stokes and Hales’ parts in a fight that occurred outside a Bristol club in September 2017.

The pair will attend a private hearing, which will be chaired by former Derbyshire batsman Tim O’Gorman. The hearing will happen 5 and 7 December.

Each player has been charged, twice, with breaching the England and Wales Cricket Board’s directive 3.3.

The directive states: ‘No participant may conduct themselves in a manner or do any act or omission at any time which may be prejudicial to the interests of cricket or which may bring the ECB, the game of cricket or any cricketer or group of cricketers into disrepute.’

Stokes and Hales will remain available for England’s tour of Sri Lanka, despite the parallel timing. Their availability for the tour of the West Indies that follows, though, remains in the balance.

Last month the New Zealand-born Stokes was found guilty of affray at Bristol Crown Court, after a week-long trial. Hales, however, was not arrested at the time of the incident and did not go on trial.

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