Andrew Flintoff has described the 2006-2007 Ashes tour of Australia, when England were thrashed 5-0, as being like a “booze cruise.”
The all rounder, who retired from Test cricket following this year’s Ashes series win, made the claim in his autobiography Ashes to Ashes, serialized in the Daily Mail.
“I was the captain of a team heading for a 5-0 Ashes whitewash,” wrote Flintoff, who was handed the skipper’s job after Michael Vaughan was injured.
“Relationships were becoming strained ... I felt massively isolated,” he wrote. “The problems had really started when we were defeated in Adelaide to go 2-0 down. I was in a bit of a muddle and didn’t really know how to get out of it.”
“My head had gone, probably with what had happened in the Ashes. The frustration was bubbling inside of me. I exploded,” Flintoff wrote. “My bat was leaning against the bench in the dressing room, and I put my foot through it and broke it — not the most intelligent thing to do.”
“The upshot was I turned up for nets the next day not in the best of shape, although I wouldn’t say I was as bad as coach Duncan Fletcher has said I was,” he wrote.
“I’m not going to try to make excuses because I know I shouldn’t have arrived for training smelling of booze. It was unprofessional but it was indicative of my state of mind at the time,” the all rounder wrote.
“I wasn’t the only one, I hasten to add, and it wasn’t just the players — most of the support staff were at it more than we were. It was like being on a booze cruise,” he wrote.
Flintoff also gave details of the infamous “pedalo incident” during England’s less than impressive 2007 World Cup campaign in the West Indies, but said he did not, as reports at the time claimed, need to be rescued.
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