Duckett: Anderson told me to throw a drink on his head during Ashes inc
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All on Tue Oct 29 04:46:01 2024
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IF this is true, then ECB is full of imbeciles to have sent Ben Duckett
home for a VERY SILLY REASON.
If I am Security personnel who saw that incident, I would have NEVER
informed ECB.
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Duckett: Anderson told me to throw a drink on his head during Ashes incident
The England opener has opened up a controversial episode in his career
saying it was 'a really, really tough time'
ESPNcricinfo staff
29-Oct-2024 • 4 hrs ago
Ben Duckett has lifted the lid on the incident that saw him sent home
from Australia during the 2017-18 Ashes after pouring a drink over James Anderson, revealing Anderson threw a drink over him first before feeling
bad and encouraging Duckett to return the favour.
Duckett was part of the Lions tour at the time, desperate to add to four
Test caps picked up from tours of Bangladesh and India at the end of
2016. The indiscretion ended up setting him back as he was sent home
with a fine and suspension from the ECB. He eventually returned to the
Lions set-up at the end of 2018.
The incident took place before the third Test against Australia, at
Perth's Avenue Bar, with England 2-0 down and subject to intense
scrutiny of their off-field behaviour. The venue had already gained
notoriety on the tour after Jonny Bairstow "greeted" Cameron Bancroft at
the bar by butting heads ahead of the series, a story that emerged with
falsely malicious undertones during the culmination of England's loss at
the Gabba in the first Test.
The ECB was already on high alert heading to Australia after Ben Stokes
was charged with affray in September of that year, before being found
not guilty in 2018. Duckett's misdemeanour ended up being the final
straw, prompting a midnight curfew instilled following the
Bairstow-Bancroft episode to be made permanent, though it has been
relaxed intermittently since.
At the time, head coach Trevor Bayliss could not contain his anger,
telling reporters: "It's a fairly trivial incident but, in the current
climate, it's just not acceptable". Anderson used his column in the
Telegraph to downplay what he regarded as "a pretty silly incident".
Both Bayliss and managing director Andrew Strauss - who had to insist
England players were not "thugs" after losing the first Test in the wake
of the Bairstow's "headbutt" - put their foot down as allegations of a
booze culture prevailed. England ended up succumbing to a 4-0 series
defeat. By then, Duckett had already returned home as part of the
collateral.
Seven years on, Duckett is an established international, and with
Anderson now retired - though he remains part of the Test set-up as a
bowling consultant - he is comfortable clarifying that he was not the instigator on that fateful night in Perth, and that he feared his
England career was over.
"Jimmy actually threw a drink on me, but no one knows about that,"
Duckett told The Final Word podcast. "And then said, 'oh, we're just
messing around. You can just lob one on my head. That's fine.'
Genuinely. So then I just poured one on his head and the security guard
saw me from the ECB, who looks after us, and it filtered back.
"That was kind of basically the story. We carried on the rest of the
night together, getting on well. That's the story that's got blown up.
Then obviously when things start getting out in the media and everyone's
saying all this stuff, then everyone believes that like that. And as
soon as a story or a headline's out there, 'well that's what happened then'.
"But then you can't really come out and say what I've just said, because
I'm a young lad trying to break into the England team. It's one of the
best ever England players, you know? And people didn't really want to
hear me.
"It was actually a really, really tough time. People look back and it's probably funny and stuff like that. But when you're in Australia and
you're kind of being told you can't go to training, you can't play -
it's a lonely place for a 22-year-old.
"And being in Australia, you're not getting much sympathy from any
anyone out there, are you? But yeah, it was one of those things where…
it feels like your world's ending. The time difference, you're not
speaking to family much. The lads around me in that group at the time
were amazing."
Duckett's subsequent emergence as an England regular across has allowed
him to put a positive spin on that period of his career. Only Joe Root
(2250) has more than Duckett's 1980 runs since returning to the Test
side as an opener at the end of 2022, at a strike rate of 88.55, with
four centuries.
The left-hander was one of just three batters to average over 50 in the
recent 2-1 series defeat to Pakistan. He is also set to be a vital cog
in the rejuvenation of the limited overs set-up, led by Test head coach
Brendon McCullum who will assume control of England's white-ball sides
in the new year.
While Duckett feared for his future after that 2017-18 winter, he
believes the resolve it bred has been integral to developing as a
mainstay across all three formats.
"It's not that moment that was the issue. It was, you know, for the next
12 months, it was, 'you're basically on hold now for a little while'.
Which for a 23 [year-old]… that's kind of a bad time to basically get
told you've got no chance here.
"It does make you grow up a little bit faster and stuff and dealing with
what I had to deal with probably made me a little bit more resilient as
a person and probably a bit tougher.
"All these things now, in a really weird way, I wouldn't change much of
it because, where I am right now, when I play for England, it's like I
don't want to give that shirt to anyone else.
"I've probably not made things easy at times. I'm not a saint and an
angel, and I probably was an easy target at the time. That would be the
only thing I'll say - whether it was dealt right or wrong, that's for
people to make their own mind up."
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