Gus Atkinson interview: I do not let drinking affect my cricket anymore

Will MacphersonMon, August 10, 2026 at 6:00 AM UTC

0

After the death of his mother Gus Atkinson says he learnt that ‘cricket is cricket’ - David Rogers/Getty Images

Gus Atkinson is quiet and undemonstrative in almost everything he does, from talking to bowling.

So when Atkinson found himself caught up in cricket’s latest early-hours drama, his involvement was perhaps the most surprising aspect of a convulsing saga that, even by recent standards, shook the English game, twisting and turning until Ben Stokes’s shock retirement at Trent Bridge.

Atkinson was perhaps the worst casting of a bad boy in cricket history. He might have started as a protagonist, when he was victim of two “unprovoked attacks” by Saracens academy player Totua Auvaa in Rex Rooms nightclub in west London, hours after bowling England to victory at Lord’s. But he was very quickly demoted to extra, given Stokes’s presence.

Stokes this week described the episode, the most recent in a string of negative headlines for the team, as a “sticky situation” for all involved, but was not prepared to say any more about the fallout. Across a varied hour near his south London home, that is the only topic Atkinson does not want to discuss in any detail.

Soon after the incident Rob Key revealed that Atkinson had said he did not even know he was breaching a team curfew, and his regret for the whole shemozzle is clear, partly because of the fallout, and partly because it cost him a Test on his home ground, the Oval.

The post-Lord’s Test incident at the Rex Rooms resulted in Atkinson missing the Oval Test and ultimately led to Ben Stokes retiring from the international game - Phillip Brown/Getty Images

What Atkinson does discuss only serves to underline quite how unusual all this was for him. Stokes spoke about the game’s drinking culture, but Atkinson says that after the sudden death of his mother, Caroline, he experienced a professional awakening, four months on from his Surrey debut aged 22.

“When it happened, I took myself away and thought about it,” he says. “There were a couple of ways this can go. I can either really dwell on it and let it affect me day-to-day, go into a dark space and let my cricket take a back step. But I didn’t want that. You get one shot at this and I wanted to make the most of it, be the best cricketer I could be. It was now or never.

“That year or two, people would have seen a change in me, how I was around my cricket. That is where it started, my professionalism. On a Champo away game you might have a pint after a day’s play. I wouldn’t do that now. As a youngster with friends in London, if I had training the next day I would maybe have a pint or two, turn up to do 12th man a bit hungover. Now I wouldn’t drink if I had training even two days later. I don’t drink around cricket unless it’s after cricket.”

Atkinson says he does not drink around cricket unless the match is over - Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

On a December night in 2020, Caroline, was a passenger in an Uber struck by a car driven by an actor called Youssef Berouain travelling at double the 30mph speed limit in Fulham. Officers at the scene said they could smell cannabis on Berouain’s person, adding that he was acting erratically and refusing to undergo roadside testing. He later fled the country for Dubai and the US. By the time a brutal four-year legal battle ended with Berouain handed an eight-and-a-half-year sentence, Atkinson was in the middle of a stunning first summer as a Test cricketer.

“That has helped me understand that cricket is cricket,” he says. “You can’t let it affect you too much. There are so many worse things that you can go through. It maybe emotionally detached me a tiny bit from a cricket point of view. That’s not to say I don’t care, it’s just given me perspective.”

Atkinson says the death of his mother has given him perspective about his cricket - Alex Davidson/Getty Images

In fact, so phlegmatic is Atkinson that his on-field manner has been questioned. He has a fine record, with 79 wickets in 18 Tests at an average of 23.27. On top of that his strike-rate is 38.6, the best among English bowlers since George Lohmann, who made his debut 140 years ago. But during a difficult Ashes tour, Stuart Broad said “his body language is not of a Test-match bowler in the battle”. It is not something Atkinson will apologise for.

“My body language has been mentioned,” says Atkinson. “But what am I meant to do? Strut around? If I am focusing on my body language that is not going to help my bowling. I didn’t take that many in Australia but I am not thinking about that stuff. I am thinking about taking wickets and winning the game. I find body language pretty irrelevant.

“I’ve always been someone who doesn’t see the point in celebrating one wicket. It doesn’t mean you will win the game. Yes, it’s a step in the right direction, but I focus on overall performance. It’s nice to get a wicket, but when I celebrate a wicket it’s the result of bowling a spell and getting the reward for what I’ve tried to do.

“You see someone bowl a short and wide one, cut to point and they go mad. I don’t really get it. A Test is five days and at the end of it you want to win and if you do, you celebrate that moment.”

Atkinson says not being as demonstrative as other players allows him to ‘focus on his bowling’ - Robbie Stephenson/PA

The Ashes in Australia was an eye-opener. He had experienced an absurd maiden year in 2024, where he became a regular on the Lord’s honours board and ticked off bucket-list items: a 12-wicket haul on debut; a century in a match where he also took a five-fer; a hat-trick. There was some second-season syndrome in 2025, a “frustrating” year that “brought me back down to earth”. He missed four of five Tests against India through injury, then was disappointed to be dropped after two Ashes Tests, then injured on his return in Melbourne, but played his part in England’s first Test success in Australia for 15 years.

Advertisement

“The Ashes was really disappointing,” he says. “We all went in with such high hopes and it didn’t work out. It was an awakening really. They just dominated us. After that first day, we were in a great position but from there we were always just fighting to be on level terms, just hanging in there. I didn’t feel like I bowled that badly, compared to my numbers. But I also wouldn’t say I bowled well.

“I felt I was learning on the job a bit, with lengths, and bowling at these batters for the first time.

“I spoke to my dad after the first day and said: ‘Wow, that is the highest standard of cricket I have ever experienced.’ Bowlers were charging in, the pace of the pitch, the crowd. It was unbelievable. The whole thing was a different level.”

On his return to England from Australia, Atkinson fell into what he describes as “Ashes blues”. Injured in deep midwinter, he struggled to shake the experience.

“I was jet-lagged for two weeks because it was getting dark so early and I was just falling asleep,” he says. “I was thinking: ‘This is awful.’ I couldn’t play cricket because of the injury, so it was a bit depressing coming back. I was flat.”

Atkinson felt flat after returning home from the Ashes defeat - Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

He met Zak Crawley for breakfast a couple of weeks later, and asked: “When will this blow over, all the Ashes talk? It was so fresh in my mind. Usually you finish a series, think about it a bit but can move on quite quickly. But this was a sort of Ashes blues.”

Despite his injury not being serious, Atkinson did not play again until May, as medical staff focused on rest and fitness, leaving plenty of time to stew. This was unusual for a player who puts his equanimity down to two things: his mother’s death and his experience as a youngster at Surrey. By the time he made his first-class debut, peers Sam Curran and Ollie Pope had played Test cricket, and Will Jacks was an established force.

“I was never one of the best growing up,” he says. “There was this picture taken: the future of Surrey cricket, with Sam, Popey, Will Jacks, Amar Virdi and so on. I remember thinking, why am I in this? Nobody knows who I am. I would turn up for Surrey U17 games and I wouldn’t bat or bowl. I never played Bunbury [festival], England U19s, or Lions.

Surrey’s young cricketers Amar Virdi, Gus Atkinson, Ollie Pope, Will Jacks, Sam Curran, Conor McKerr and Ryan Patel - Graham Morris /Cricketpix

“There were probably guys who grew up knowing they would play for England. Sam was so good at 16 or 17. I was 18 going to Australia, I was desperate to play cricket. I didn’t have a back-up plan. I wanted to give it all to being a cricketer. I didn’t want to think negatively.”

It took Atkinson until 22 to play first-class cricket because of back injuries that made him question himself.

“I had been signed for three years, had three stress fractures, and I was in a changing room with some big personalities feeling like I was useless,” he says of his early time in the Surrey first team.

From that slow start, things accelerated quickly, especially in 2023 when he was clocked at 95mph in the Hundred. He toured India with the Test side in early 2024, and Brendon McCullum suggested lengthening his run-up, which had been just 16 metres long, and meant he lost rhythm easily. He pulled out of the IPL, which he describes as the “best decision of my career so far”, and worked on his new method, which made him a different bowler, and propelled him into the Test team that summer.

Although he says he is not “nerdy” about bowling, there is a clear interest in his own craft; his next aim is improving his new-ball bowling – which he did for England before Surrey – while keeping his pace high, as he builds towards next summer’s Ashes.

Atkinson is experiencing what he calls a “stop-start” summer. The Rex Rooms incident came at the end of his latest Lord’s epic, match figures of seven for 39 in the win over New Zealand, and he has been recalled in ODIs and is performing well in the Hundred. He is doing plenty right: he sits 12th in the ICC Test bowling rankings, making him the only Englishman in the top 25.

Match figures of seven for 39 at Lord’s were a welcome return to form for Atkinson after a tough time during the Ashes - Philip Brown/Getty Images

“I do keep half an eye on that,” he admits. “It reflects how well you perform. I want to be the best player I can be. Being the No 1 Test bowler in the world is something I want to be. I want to climb up those rankings. If I achieve that I am helping the team. To be able to say you are No 1 in the world at something would be so cool.”

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Sports”