Drink wasonce central to Ashes culture, now it has a dark side
Derek Pringle explains why the current tales of excess have handed the moral high ground to the Australians
Andrew Strauss’s decision to impose a curfew on England’s cricketers in Australia is nothing new from the ECB’s director of England Cricket.
There was one introduced, for instance, on the 1982/83 Ashes tour by England manager, Doug Insole. In an attempt to shackle the drinking habits of a team containing the mighty thirsts of Ian Botham, Allan Lamb, Ian Gould, Robin Jackman and, dare I say it, your correspondent, Insole decreed there would be no drinking in public after midnight.
You can go back even further, to Bodyline, when a concerned Douglas Jardine routinely quizzed leg-spinner, Tommy Mitchell, as to why he allowed Harold Larwood to get so drunk every evening. “I can lead a horse to water skipper but I cannot make him drink,” said Mitchell, who was from the same Midlands stock as Larwood and as such shared the same dry humour, and love of beer.
Fast forward a few years to 1947/48 and the Adelaide Test, which was played in searing heat, and a drinking feat of some renown. It was Alec Bedser’s proud achievement in that match to have bowled 30 overs in Australia’s first innings and taken 3-97, including Don Bradman for a duck. Bedser’s take on it was more prosaic. “I bowled 20 overs on the reel in 40C heat. Then afterwards, I drank 20 pints of Fosters and never had a piss.”
Getting on the lash in Aussie, whether in celebration or contrition, is just part of the Ashes. If there was an incentive to remain teetotal, it existed more back in the day when the choice of alcoholic beverage lay between a handful of cold, tasteless and fizzy beers. These days, the choice and quality between local wines and beers is stupendous and saying ‘No’ is just not an option when you are on the road for four months.
Strauss has not handed down a drinking ban just a midnight curfew, something Insole did on my tour 35 years ago. Details are a little sketchy after such a long time, but if memory serves we were allowed a drink after 12 but only if we took it in our hotel room.
I can recall the team meeting when Insole issued his directive, it took place in the Melbourne Hilton in the lead-up to the Boxing Day Test.
The biggest surprise came when Insole asked if there were any objections and the most vehement dissenter was Derek Randall, who was neither a big drinker nor a night owl.
“Nobody’s going to tell me when I can have a drink or when I should be going to bed,” he fumed. “I’m not bloody six years old.”
“Oh yes you are,” shouted Botham, in an attempt to inject some humour into the meeting. But Insole was not for moving despite Randall’s and some of the other players’ objections, and the curfew was put in place with £1,000 fine for anyone breaking it.
“I remember thinking they may as well take my tour fee off me now,” said Graeme Fowler.
“We only got £10,000 for the entire five-month trip, so the fine was a big chunk. Anyway, I don’t recall many observing the curfew, though, equally, I don’t remember anyone getting done for breaking it.”
It was a panicky measure taken due to several factors, the principle one being that we had lost in Adelaide and were now two down in the series with two to play.
As a result, one tabloid paper had begun to question the boozing and late nights, even though most of the Australian team were just as thirsty.
On that tour, journalists and players would mostly drink together enjoying one other’s company.
Many a convivial evening was spent together in the Bourbon and Beefsteak bar in Sydney’s Kings Cross; us revealing little snippets of info they wouldn’t normally get, them showing us how to ad-lib copy back home from the phone by the toilets.
There was an Omerta – that what happened on the social side of the tour would not get reported. Of course, when one paper broke this, largely because their main rival had Botham as a columnist, the others came under pressure from their editors to do likewise.
Botham was box office copy at the time. He was signed as a columnist to the
Mirror whose cricket correspondent, Chris ‘Crash’ Lander, kept him on a tight leash. As a result, Lander, would spend much of his time socialising with Botham which on that tour meant downing jugs of whisky and ice cream, often in one.
It all came to a head in Adelaide’s Sebel Hotel, when having downed one of the jugs, Graham Morris, a photographer on the trip, was then handed a pint of creme de menthe by Botham to also knock back in one.
Sensing an imminent visit to A&E if he did so, Morris, who was performing his drinking feats standing on a table in the middle of the bar, managed to engineer a swoon so that he went one way and the creme de menthe went the other.
Miraculously, he escaped injury but the glass and green liqueur went everywhere, inevitably attracting attention where it shouldn’t.
The differences between that drinking culture, which was fairly puerile, and the current one surrounding the England team, is that there appears to be undertones of violence now.
That, or the inability to behave while under the influence.
In the aftermath of Ben Stokes’ brawl outside a Bristol night club, it just does not look good for any player to do things that could be construed as oikish, especially if strong drink had also been taken.
Jonny Bairstow’s ‘head butt’ on Cameron Bancroft during a night out in a bar, however slight or matey, was neither clever nor convivial especially between people who barely know each other.
The incident has certainly piqued Trevor Bayliss, England’s coach. A man of the world, Bayliss wants his players to take responsibility for their actions on and off the field.
Strauss wants that, too, so to issue a curfew is to accept defeat on their part. Even worse, it has conceded the moral high ground to David Warner and provided him with ammunition to use against Bairstow, never the most chilled competitor, for the remainder of the series.
Thick skins, along with better batting and bowling, are going to be needed.
There appears to be understones of violence now. That, or the inability to behave under the influence