Andrew Flintoff has now used the opportunity to talk on the controversy that has marred England’s preparations for the tour to the Caribbean. It provides an insight into his thinking and of the ongoing fractious relationships allegedly within the England dressing room.
Flintoff’s take on his relationship with Pietersen:
“‘As a captain, as a player, I’ll support you.’ The way I played proves that. I played for Kevin as I did for Vaughany [Michael Vaughan] or Nasser [Hussain] or whoever it may be. I didn’t want him to finish. I thought he could have given himself time to grow into the role.”
On his take why the coach should not be fired:
“We don’t want to get into the football scenario where the team gets beat and the manager gets sacked,” he said. “As players we’ve got everything at our disposal, we’ve got the coaches and we’ve got everything we need to perform. We’ve got to take some responsibility.”
On his consolation words for Peter Moores:
“To be fair to Mooresy the one thing he’s kept is his dignity. Because he’s a good man. He is a good man.”
On him not supporting skipper Kevin Pietersen:
“I couldn’t support him in not having the coach there, because I had a good relationship with Peter Moores, and I was open about that with Kevin, with Mooresy and Hugh [Morris].”
On his perspective about dressing room divisions and differences:
“Everyone’s going on about cliques and this and that. I suppose there are. You get put together as a group of people. The one thing you’ve got in common is that you play cricket. Within that, you’ll get on better with someone. That’s not to the detriment of the side. That’s how it is. If you’re in an office or any other walk of life you get on better with some than others and that’s how the England team works. When you get on the pitch we’re all fighting for the same outcome. We want to win games of cricket. I really don’t see it being a problem.”
Andrew Strauss had better watch out because here’s Andrew Flintoff’s views of England’s new skipper:
“He’s his own man. We’re very much chalk and cheese, but we get on fine. He’s the brunt of the jokes sometimes, so we’re going to have to tone that down. He’s a good fellow. People are mentioning the one-day stuff (about Strauss becoming one day captain as well without really making the team in recent times), but he’s scored one-day hundreds. Knowing Straussy, he’ll just adapt.”
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