That agonised moaning heard from Lord's around the world is not a group yoga session loosening some stiff upper lips, but English cricket authorities contorting themselves into a pretzel in an attempt to retain both Ben Stokes and their principles.

England's desperate desire to win the series in Australia can be measured by Stokes not having been sacked by Wednesday. Making the all-important presumption that Stokes is the same redhead known as "Stokes" in the video of this week's incident in Bristol, throwing punches in the street, visibly intimidating his victims, while his teammate Alex Hales is allegedly begging him to stop, the case is surely open and shut. Stokes cannot possibly tour Australia and must face a lengthy ban from cricket.

And yet … and yet … Stokes is an incalculably important cricketer to England and to the Ashes series overall. Stokes is arguably the most talented player across both teams and the most likely individual key to the outcome. In the last Ashes series in Australia, he was the sole Englishman to score a century, he destroyed Australia with the ball in the series-winning Test match of 2015, and he has got better and better since then. With six Test hundreds and 95 wickets, he is as pivotal to England's hopes as Andrew Flintoff and Ian Botham were to their last two series wins in Australia. England want him so much to play in this Ashes series, there have already been conversations about how to orchestrate some kind of ritual punishment – stripping the vice-captaincy, some kind of limited suspension – without actually banning him from the Test matches.

To put it nicely, they have got to be kidding. Some perspective: Botham was banned for two months of Test cricket for admitting he had smoked cannabis. Flintoff lost the England vice-captaincy for falling out of a pedalo. Mike Gatting lost the captaincy after inviting a barmaid to his hotel room. These were slap and tickle compared with the acts of violence Stokes has allegedly committed. He was allegedly threatened with a bottle before lashing out. Whether or not he was provoked into punching those guys' lights out makes no difference. Alcohol is no excuse. David Warner was provoked into striking Joe Root in 2013, and was rightly suspended from two Test matches. On the scale of violence, Warner's act bore no comparison to what Stokes allegedly did in Bristol.