I was ecstatically happy after that game, pleased that I’d justified Fletch’s confidence in me and proud that I’d shown the balls to stand up and fight my corner. We had a team meal after the game and then went out to the Living Room in Birmingham. As David Brent would say, ‘El Vino did flow.’
That evening, I was due at my friend Tony Finch’s house on the outskirts of Birmingham for a barbecue. Sarah had gone there to wait for me and Allan Donald was there with Tina, his wife, and their kids. By the time I rocked up in a taxi rather late in the evening, I could barely speak. To get myself to Finchy’s house, I had to ring him up and pass the phone to the taxi driver because I was in no state to pass on directions.
We finally got there and I continued to have a thoroughly marvellous time until it was time to for Sarah and me to go home in a taxi with AD and family. The only memory I have of that journey home is of Hannah, AD’s oldest, saying: ‘Daddy, why has Matthew got his head out of the window?’
AD said, ‘I don’t think he’s feeling too well, Hannah.’
So I was back on track and I then had a decent enough series against India, with the exception of Headingley, where the ball swung all over the place, they got 600-plus and, try as I might, I just couldn’t make Rahul Dravid play. It swung and he left it, time and again.
I had a chat with Fletch about what was going wrong and he suggested that I go wider on the crease, but I wasn’t sure that he was right on this one. At very least, I wanted to try it out for myself, so between Tests I did a bit of work on my bowling with Steve Oldham, the Yorkshire bowling coach whom I respect. I practised quite a bit and, when I got to the Oval for the next Test, I told Fletch that I thought I’d solved my problems. When he watched me bowling, he said: ‘You’re just going wider on the crease. That’s exactly what I told you to do a week ago. Why didn’t you listen to me then?’
That was absolutely fair enough, but I had just wanted to try it out for myself and, before I made a major change in a Test match, to be comfortable and happy in myself that I was doing the right thing. I suppose what it really came down to is that I can be a stubborn sod at times, and Fletch is very stubborn as well, so there were a few occasions when immovable object met immovable object and friction was created as a result.
I played in all seven Tests that summer and I was the leading wicket-taker against both Sri Lanka and India, so I must have done a few things right along the way. And at the end of the season, before we set off for my first Ashes series in Australia, I was awarded a central contract by the ECB. This meant better pay and a workload managed by the England coach. For the first time in my career, my job description was primarily to be an England player, rather than a Yorkshire player who might occasionally play for England. I won’t say that this meant I felt like part of the furniture or settled in the side, but it was at least a bit of evidence that the management had some confidence in my ability. Either that or they just wanted to make sure they could keep a closer eye on me. Whatever the reason, my main bosses were now at Lord’s rather than Headingley, and I didn’t even have to move to London. But it was beginning to look as though I might be a proper England player after all.
†HOGFACT: A cough or sneeze makes the AIR in the human respiratory system move faster than the speed of sound. So if someone sneezes right in front of your face, you’ve got to be pretty sharp to get out of the way.
†HOGFACT: The average housewife walks ten MILES a day around the house. I wonder how much of that is walking to the telephone and back to natter to her mother or her friends?
‘Daddy, Daddy, please can I do some words for your book?’
‘Not just yet, Ernie. The nice people want to know all about all the things that Daddy likes to eat that make him big and strong.’
‘But even the dogs have done some words, Daddy.’
‘Maybe later, Ernie, if you’re a good boy…’
REVEALED
OVERLEAF…
The amazing drinking exploits of
Andrew Flintoff…
Sorry, I was there, but I don’t remember a single thing.
This might sound a bit odd, but when I was younger I used to eat a lot of nettles. It was a bit of a party trick that I would perform from time to time to impress my school friends. I can’t remember exactly when or where I discovered it—some misspent afternoon or other when I should have been tidying my bedroom or doing my homework—but I must have read somewhere that if you hold the bottom of a nettle leaf when you pick it, then fold it carefully inwards, you don’t get stung. If you then put it in your mouth and chew it, you don’t feel a thing. And it tastes like, well, nettles I suppose. (Don’t try this at home, kids, unless you have a fully qualified nettle-handler in attendance, such as me.)
As you might expect, not many 8-year-olds in Pudsey were aware of this advanced piece of Nettleology, so they never believed that I would dare to pick up nettles with my bare hands and eat them. So my party piece never failed to impress. No pocket money changed hands, I must stress; my nettle-eating was never a commercial venture. I did it purely to gain friends and influence among the short-trousered community in Pudsey.
Funnily enough, I recently read on the internet that eating nettles actually makes your hair brighter, thicker and shinier. It also, apparently, makes your skin clearer, healthier and more radiant. Aha, I thought:
So that’s why i’m so bloody gorgeons.
Anyway, I only mention my nettle-eating antics because, as I’ve grown older, my eating habits have continued to be a bit weird. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fussy eater. On the contrary, there is hardly anything I don’t like. It’s just that I tend to be something of a mood eater: I eat when I feel like eating and, if I’m not in the mood, nothing will persuade me to put my snout into the trough. Sometimes I can go a whole day without eating until the evening. At other times I won’t be able to stop snacking all day long.
As far as my cricket is concerned, this mood-eating tendency did not made me especially popular with the nutritionists who worked with the England team, making sure that we were following the right sort of diets. Since the introduction of ECB central contracts a few years ago, we have become the first generation of cricketers who are officially supposed to watch what we eat. Not only are we supposed to be cricketers these days, but we’re expected to be finely honed athletes as well. In theory, at least.
Unfortunately, my mood-eating habits meant that I usually didn’t conform to the nutritionists’ idea of what makes for a healthy eating schedule. And their biggest bugbear was my preference for avoiding breakfast.
Generally speaking, I just don’t do breakfast, because I don’t like eating as soon as I’ve woken up. I am, in fact, a GRUMPY GRUNTING GIT in the mornings and if I eat anything shortly after waking up it makes me feel physically sick. Which, in turn, only makes me even more grumpy.
Now, I’m well aware that breakfast is supposed to be The Most Important Meal Of The Day. My mum told me that when I was a little lad and the nutritionists have told me umpteen times since. I know that it’s supposed to set you up for the day, get your brain and body going, regulate your appetite, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But it just doesn’t happen that way for me.