So, what have you ever done for me? The others get me glasses or trainers

Duncan Fletcher said this to me after Fredalo...

WHEN I was introduced to Duncan Fletcher I was lying on a hotel floor in Blackpool during the Lancashire v Glamorgan game. I’d been out drinking with Matthew Maynard, the Glamorgan captain.

Their physio walked through the hotel with Duncan and said, as he passed me, ‘Duncan, that’s your future all-rounder.’ ‘Nice to meet you,’ I replied from the vantage point of the hotel carpet.

As England coach, Duncan did some really good things for the side. He helped us to start winning again, but my relationship with him was weird. The main issue with Duncan for me, however, was the question of favouritism. There were some people in the dressing room he wouldn’t even speak to. There were others he couldn’t do enough for.

I’ve never been — and never will be — someone who ‘plays the game’ with people. I don’t suck up to anyone or do any of that. I point-blank refuse. I just hate it. Instinctively, I always sided with the new players or the unfashionable ones because when you went into the side at first it could feel like you were an outcast. My thinking was, ‘Nobody should come into this dressing room like that; it’s just wrong.’

Sometimes, however, it seemed that my friendships with new players lasted only until they felt able to move onwards and upwards. I remember when Paul Collingwood first came into the dressing room we did everything together. We practised together, trained together, had dinner together; we batted together and did well in games together — we were thick as thieves.

When he got established he just binned me. Maybe I did something to upset him, but it seemed to me that he positioned himself where he felt he needed to be.

I think that was partly to do with the culture Duncan created — there were ‘ins’ and ‘outs’, favourites and outcasts, people he wanted and people he could barely tolerate.

After the incident in 2007 when I tried to get on board a pedalo after a few drinks Duncan was exasperated with me. I can understand that — I’d got in trouble once too often. But he said something to me that seemed so odd that I’ll never forget it: ‘What have you ever done for me?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Duncan,’ I replied, very surprised. ‘What are you on about?’

‘Well, one of the lads gets me Asics trainers, another one gets me Oakley sunglasses. What have you ever done for me?’ I was staggered. How had the conversation got on to a pair of trainers? I was being banned by England for one game after the pedalo fall-out and here we are talking about shoes?

Of course, later you think up a lot of clever replies that would have been funny at the time. ‘Well, Duncan, I did play a hand in the 2005 Ashes.’ Or ‘Aren’t you an OBE now, Duncan?’ Instead, the thought in my head was ‘But, Duncan, if only you’d told me your waist size and inside leg, I could have got you a pair of tracksuit trousers.’

When Peter Moores took over in April 2007, it was a breath of fresh air. But given my relationship with Duncan by that time, if Idi Amin had taken over as coach, I’d still have been doing handstands.

When Duncan announced he was retiring, Michael Vaughan started welling up. Me? I was looking around for someone to high-five.