Root must play the con man
LUKE FLETCHER has credited Jeremy Kyle with speeding his recovery from the horrific head injury he suffered at Edgbaston in July.
The Nottinghamshire fast bowler has been given the green light by doctors to return to training with his teammates at Trent Bridge after three and a half months on the sidelines.
Fletcher says it was the prescription of total inactivity on his sofa in front of daytime television that he found the most painful aspect of the entire episode.
Fletcher, who has kept his sense of humour sharp throughout the ordeal, said: “Getting up knowing you have no routine was the worst bit. You don’t have anything to do. You don’t need to be anywhere.
“I was watching The Jeremy Kyle Show every morning and thinking, what’s going on with me here? It had to change!”
Recalling the incident makes even more uncomfortable viewing. Fletcher was struck flush on the top of his head in his bowling follow-through by a bullet-straight drive from Warwickshire batsman Sam Hain.
In the immediate aftermath, the 29-year-old slumped to his haunches clutching his head as players on both sides reacted either with frantic waves to the dressing room or by covering their faces.
Amazingly, Fletcher suffered no fracture but there was a huge gash on the top of his head and more worryingly a “slight bleed” on his brain which led to doctors at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham subsequently standing him down for the rest of the season.
Three months on and Fletcher is still not allowed to drive but has been provided with a bike by Nottinghamshire in order to get him to the Trent Bridge gym – and away from Jeremy Kyle.
“When you have a big impact injury on your brain the DVLA get informed and there are protocols you have to follow: no drinking, no driving,” said Fletcher. “I’m sure I will be absolutely fine but it is in their hands.
“But the club got me a bike and apart from that everything else has been fine. It was the 10-11 weeks of doing absolutely nothing which was the hardest time.
“Looking back on that night I remember the ball hitting me and thinking after about three or four seconds that I was probably going to be all right. But I could see the blood gushing out and there was obviously the initial shock. After walking from the middle, before I knew it the gash was all stitched up. So I didn’t panic.
“I had a bit of pressure in my head for the first week but since then I’ve been fine. It was quite a good knock. It probably hit me in the best possible place it could. I was very fortunate. It could have been a lot worse.” It was a bitter-sweet season for Fletcher, who was torn between cheering his side on to T20 Finals Day and Royal London One-Day Cup glory while wondering what might have been. The bowler then had to endure his county’s weak-kneed crawl to the finish line of a Championship second tier they had bossed for much of the season, his team-mates hanging on gratefully to the second promotion spot ahead of Northamptonshire. Fletcher has now been rewarded with a new two-year deal which gave him a fillip when it was most needed and now cannot wait to get stuck into training with his team-mates, starting on November 8.
Nottinghamshire’s coaches have been warned of the dangers of him suffering a second impact so he will not be putting himself in the line of fire until after Christmas.
But the player himself maintains that facing a speeding ball, whichever way it comes next season, will not be a problem.
“We have access to a sports psychologist, we have doctors and everything that is available,” said Fletcher.
“In any case there has not been any stage when I worried about myself...apart from when I was watching Jeremy Kyle, that is.” MICHAEL VAUGHAN says Joe Root will have to ‘con’ his England players into believing they can beat Australia in the Ashes this winter without Ben Stokes.
Root has led his country only seven times since taking over the Test captaincy from Alastair Cook earlier this year.
The Yorkshireman, right, guided England to victories over South Africa and West Indies but that was with talismanic all-rounder and vice-captain Stokes in tow. He looks unlikely to tour following his arrest last month.
Vaughan, who captained England in 51 Tests, said: “I have not seen too many celebrations from the Australians but I am sure in private they have cracked open a few bottles of Penfold. “I watch England walk out on the field and when Stokes is in the team they walk out two inches taller.” BT Sport pundit Vaughan added: “Root’s greatest challenge is going to be to convince the team they can win. “It may be that he has to lie a bit and con them. “He might have to blow up a few tyres that might be flat and convince them they are good enough to beat this Australian team.” Watch the Ashes exclusively live on BT Sport with coverage of the first Test from 11pm on November 22. Visit www.bt.com/sport for more.