Steve Harmison: Mental Health Battle, McCullum Debate & England’s Future | Stick To Cricket EP 34

0:00Michael Vaughan: Before we get started, I'd like to thank our partners, Betfair. Hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Enjoy the show. Welcome, Steve.

0:09David Lloyd: How are you, Michael?

0:09Michael Vaughan: How are you? Very, very well. Yeah, welcome, Steve. No, I'm all right. Fish, fruit.

0:15Sir Alastair Cook: Yes, ooh, nice. Smelly, they are.

0:18Michael Vaughan: What have we all been up to? Anything this week? Any football, Steve, your team? No. Eddie Howard? He was a bit of pressure, hadn't he?

0:25David Lloyd: No, he wasn't. I don't think he was. Where does that nonsense come from? Yeah, just a modern cricket football supporter, isn't it?

0:31Michael Vaughan: Yeah.

0:33David Lloyd: The modern supporter wants instant success. I mean, the Eddie Howe one, he's been a manager at Newcastle for four years. We were in the doldrums. We were on our way back to the Championship, 19th in the Premier League. We've done... No, I'm all right. He's been in the Champions League twice. He's had three directors of football, three chief execs, and we've had a few bad results. I mean, he's brilliant for me. I think he's a brilliant manager, but he's also a brilliant person. And, I mean... So he was a nice bloke. He's a really, really nice guy. I mean, I get to interview him after each home game that I do.

1:09Michael Vaughan: You're still the Talk Sport correspondent for Newcastle.

1:13David Lloyd: Is that the title? I think so, yeah. I tell you what's happening. I mean, I get some stick about what you've got a cricketer doing that for, but I'm like, I don't talk tactics or anything like that. I tell you what, you're listening in the car, you're listening in the garden, and I tell you exactly what's happening. Trippier's run down the wing, he's crossed it, Isak scored, Murphy's crossed it, Isak scored. 1-0 Newcastle. That's it, I'm not there to give him...

1:38Steve Harmison: Doesn't that play for Liverpool?

1:40David Lloyd: He plays for Liverpool now, but he's injured.

1:45Sir Alastair Cook: I played against Steve. You did? Yeah, that was the match thing. You put in a couple of great crosses. What was it? It was the match.

1:56David Lloyd: Remember Sky 1 did the match. The hilarious thing that one was. Yeah, it was in a show. Stewie did it a year before, didn't he? So they did this game at St James' Park. It was a bunch of celebrities against retired footballers, weren't they? And they trained for a week at Newcastle, training ground. And then they played at St James' Park, 40 ,000 people. And I was training. Remember, I was coming on to the Newcastle training. I was training at Newcastle at the time. It was the day before we flew to the West Indies in 2008, 2009 or something like that. And the day before, Terry Mack was in the corridor and he went, Hami, do you want to play football tomorrow?

2:37David Lloyd: I was like, yes, I would. He's like, when do you go away? I went, tomorrow. He went, no, no, you're probably better off not doing it. No, no, I want to play. So we went up the road and I went on a sub at half time with Dean Saunders and Graeme Souness. They were the three substitutes, me, Dean Saunders, Graeme Souness.

2:51Phil Tufnell: You sat on the bench with Souness. Well... This were on Sky? It was... Yeah. Where were you?

2:56David Lloyd: What's going on? It was in the... It was this. So they trained for a week, but in the middle of the week, they had a friendly against Newcastle United. It was international break. What? Basically just the young kids that played. But I think the story as it went was Craig Bellamy and Graeme Souness had fallen out the week before. Oh, that was it, yes. The week before. Yes. When Bellas got dropped and Graeme said he was injured and there was a lot of hoo-ha. I think it was Dave Jones, who was on Sky Sports News at the time, was making light of it and making fun of it. And as we were walking over to the academy training ground, somebody had mentioned to the gaffer, he went, that's him, that was taking a mick out of you on Sky Sports.

3:37David Lloyd: And Graham Souness wasn't scheduled to play. He told Kip Man to go and get his boots in, he went on at half-time. Yeah, he did. Dave Jones came off. And crunched. Harvey.

3:46Sir Alastair Cook: Crunched off. Hilarious. I mean... Who was your back for? of the tech team? Paddy McGuinness.

3:55Sir Alastair Cook: Who else did we have?

3:56David Lloyd: He got Harvey because I remember I was playing I was playing with Peter Amage the young lad playing with Newcastle playing with QPR great lad and Robbie Elliott and I said what foot is the manager? Because when I was in Newcastle I never ever trained football I was in the gym never went outside I never wore Newcastle kit I earned the right to wear the crest and I never wore I always wore my own kit and I played in this game and I said what foot's the gaffer? and they were like, he's right-footed. So I played one on the instep, got it wrong. He's controlled the inside of his sort of right foot and pinged it with his left foot, and I've looked at him.

4:28David Lloyd: I thought he said he was right-footed. So they're like, look, and then the next one, I give it to him on the wrong side again. He's controlled the inside of his left and pinged it with his right, and I was like, oh, he's both-footed. Unbelievable. Yeah, he was a scary, scary. He was scary. One of the best. I loved the... Oh, he loved each other. Great man. He was so good to me, because I thought my days at Newcastle were coming to an end, training there. and then one of his first days, he introduced himself and he said, you know, the senior players here say you're all right, so if you want to continue training here, you can continue.

5:00David Lloyd: I was like, ah, yes, please, thank you. It was brilliant.

5:03Sir Alastair Cook: Lee Boyer played. Lee Boyer played, yeah.

5:06David Lloyd: How many did you concede?

5:08Sir Alastair Cook: Oh, six or seven.

5:10David Lloyd: Any saves, though? Shola played, Michael Chopra played, Shola played, Rami. We must have some footage of that. Kieran. It was...

5:19Steve Harmison: Yeah. Get a footage of that. What goalie gloves did you have? Oh, sport.

5:23David Lloyd: Bill Tufnel.

5:24Steve Harmison: Did you have your name on it? Yeah, yeah, PT.

5:26David Lloyd: Did you? Stewie played the year before. Stewie played the year before, got man of match at St James's. He could play, Stewie. Stewie played centre-half. He played.

5:34Sir Alastair Cook: Yeah, he could play. Where did that, obviously, you're from that neck of the woods, but where did that football love come from then? Because, you know, you really are into it.

5:42David Lloyd: I was all... I had no interest in playing cricket. I mean, I didn't know anything. My cricketing career was like a whirlwind at the start because I played for Northumberland under-17s against Durham under-17s. And that would have been the middle of August, early August. And within three, three and a half weeks of that game where I was just a schoolboy cricketer, I'd gone from playing two second-team games, Scarborough Festival when Simon Brown got injured and that was the first time I'd played against you and you got 100. and then I went into my first class. I think the first four games I played against Vaughan, he got 100 in each one.

6:21David Lloyd: Did he really?

6:23Michael Vaughan: I reckon I played against you on your debut.

6:25David Lloyd: He was. That was my first team game, adult game. That was at Chester Street, wasn't it? No, no, no. Was that not a one-day game at Scarborough? Scarborough was a one-day game.

6:33Michael Vaughan: It could have been the Tilcon Trophy or something. Something like that, yeah.

6:36Steve Harmison: Would you still be in the Lanks, lad?

6:38Michael Vaughan: Yeah, yeah.

6:39Steve Harmison: Yorkshire.

6:39Michael Vaughan: Yeah, he probably would have been.

6:41David Lloyd: I mean, that was a bizarre game. Stick for being from Manchester. It was a bizarre game. I think I bowled me 10 overs straight at the start. I think Yorkshire got something like 360 or 48 overs and I bowled 10 overs for 36. I got them in, I got them in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

6:57Michael Vaughan: Before we get started, I'd like to thank our partners, Betfair. So just hit subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Enjoy the show.

7:10David Lloyd: I don't know, why am I crying? I've got money in my pocket, I'm the best cricketers in England, one of the best cricketers in the world, and I've got no idea what's going on.

7:18Steve Harmison: I always thought you'd always do everything else for anyone else, but you wouldn't do it for yourself.

7:22Phil Tufnell: And you said, this is your room, the door, he puts the key in, push the door and the whole lot fell. It's not on Injies, is it? Oh, right.

7:31Michael Vaughan: Would you be interested in that role?

7:34David Lloyd: I think I've tried twice. I think that ship's probably sailed for me. He took a malaria tablet... Stuck off his nose. It sneezed and it went that way. He was dissolving it with water and I'm thinking, what chance have we got? Whoever's decided that that is a good plan to go into the first test match is negligent.

8:02I'd gone from playing half a dozen cricket matches a summer

8:06David Lloyd: because football season and then starting the football season to that. So my love was football and then eight weeks later I was in Pakistan and Pakistan for England under 19s within ten days of that I was knocking on Fred's door at three o 'clock in the morning as captain going I can't handle this. And that Pakistan trip scarred me for life on Turin and my Turin days after that What year was that? 96. 96. Were you on that tour? No. I was on the 18s

8:33Michael Vaughan: so yeah.

8:34David Lloyd: So that under 19 trip I was a year younger so Fred was captain Ben Holyoke, Alex Tudor, X-Wallion was on it, I think. X-Wallion would have been on it. David Sales, Chris Reid. Good players. Good team, good players. And then that sort of having to go home from there and that started a bit of a spiral into where my mental health would turn for the worst. And that always had a ramification on my early part of whatever tour I went on from there when everybody was like, Bumble was commentating, Nassau was commentating, we go, I haven't started very well, he's underprepared, he's not got the overs in, all this stuff.

9:15David Lloyd: And I used to use that as a crutch and used to be happy when people were saying that. Because the underlying issues with the sort of depressions, the clinical depressions I had, the anxieties of going away from home and the anxieties of being on tour and not being able to train to the level that I could for the first sort of seven to ten days would always mean that I would start tours. So I started tours, you know.

9:37Michael Vaughan: Well, do you go back to 96 when you... So you go to Pakistan, you're all right getting on the plane. Yeah. So you're fine getting on. Did you know any of the lads there? It was an adventure. No, I'd been to Lillashore three times. And didn't know really anyone. What was it, those first... I mean, Pakistan's quite a tough place to tour anyway because there's not a lot happening away from the cricket. You've been out of Newcastle.

9:56David Lloyd: I'd been to Alcudia twice. Right. My whole life. I'd been on Holder twice in my whole life. I had no idea what I was walking into. I didn't know an idea about cricket. I didn't know anything about touring. Nothing against Pakistan. I didn't have any idea what Pakistan was going to be like. And the shell shock of being there, I think, had a scar on me for the rest of my tour. For my early touring days, as in getting on a plane, the anxieties of three days before. I remember I wrote in my book, there was times where we were going on tour and I would be wanting my car to crash going to the airport because I'm thinking I can get an extra three days at home.

10:33David Lloyd: this is the stupid things were going on in front of my mind about touring about leaving home about not wanting to be aware from the family and not wanting to be aware and then when you got to the destination you got to for 7 to 10 days once that period went over the anxiety the hyperventilator not being able to speak I mean the one tour which and this is where I mean I can rabbit so apologies for I keep going but like why Trez will always be a hero to me not because he was the best player, one of the best players I played with, but he was the one that said, I can't do this anymore. I was that person.

11:09David Lloyd: I keep telling myself I didn't want to be that person. Trez, when he went home and he started his career, when Trez went home, I was like, yeah, you lucky bastard. You're the one that's done it because going into that South Africa series, I remember the first test match in Port Elizabeth. I remember me and Kurt Russell went to this breathing specialist. It was a physio. We hid it from most people of what I was going through. Because we were at altitude and it was even harder to breathe and harder to train, I wasn't training. Fletcher kept talking about me, trying to get me a little bit more. and I remember the rugby field over the back of Wanderers, where the nets are.

11:57David Lloyd: We were doing sprints down the side and I was like pulling off. There was like a stand on the side I'm pulling off and Kurt came up to me and he was like, he was injured. I was gone, physically crying and I had no idea. And there was times, there was times throughout the build-up to tours. I remember being in Disneyland Paris in a restaurant. I'm going to turn away from the two Littlans at the time, going away the day after we landed and I'm sitting there crying my eyes out and I've got no idea what's wrong with me. I've got no idea. I'm sitting there to hear you and I'm like, I don't know. Why am I crying?

12:28David Lloyd: I've got money in my pocket. I'm the best cricketers in England. One of the best cricketers in the world. I'm going on a tour to South Africa and I've got no idea what's going on. Do you now know what's going on? I was diagnosed with clinical depression and a lot of the anxiety stuff came from, I think, I think it came from that first tour. And the more and more I do this mental health show on Talk Sport, and the more and more I talk to people, sports people, who have had troubles, I get more and more of an understanding of what was the matter with me, which I think is great. I wish I knew it at the time.

13:03David Lloyd: But these times where I was physically upset and I've got no idea why, I'm sitting here and all of a sudden it's just coming. I was like, I can't stop.

13:11Steve Harmison: How much is that to do with the actual, kind of the expectation of performance?

13:15David Lloyd: I think it's quite a bit. Even now.

13:18Michael Vaughan: Trezor's kind of, if you think about Trezor, I think Sid wrote in his book, it's performance-related. Yeah. Because he obviously gets on the plane now as a coach.

13:26David Lloyd: I still get on the plane, but for two or three days leading into it, I'm like, I don't want to go. And for the first few days I'm out there, I still have the anxiety. When you're commentating. Well, still now. Yeah, but it goes quicker because I've not got the added pressure of what you're saying is going on to play. And that, I think, hampered me at the start. And to finish off on that South Africa trip, I remember seeing to Kirk, We went to this breathing specialist. I'm lying on a bed. It's like a comedy sketch. I'm lying on a bed, there's smoke going everywhere. There's this woman telling us to breathe.

13:57David Lloyd: I'm trying not to hyperventilate, and I'm lying there thinking, what the fuck am I doing here? I'm lying. This is mad. And I had the choice. And I was saying, I go that way to Port Elizabeth. This is 2004. I go that way to Port Elizabeth. I continue to go that way in Johannesburg. and I get on the arrivals, Newcastle destination, Newcastle, and I'm going home. If I go home, all the stuff with Tres comes. And at the time, I was the number one ranked bowler in the world. And I had no idea. I averaged 70, I think I averaged 79 with a ball and 40 with a bat on that trip. And I still think that's my biggest success, getting through that trip, because that was the closest I was to me going home and calling it a day.

14:39Sir Alastair Cook: What, from cricket in total?

14:40David Lloyd: From cricket in total. because I was at a point where if I can't go away from home and can't perform away from home, that means I can't play for England. If I can't play for England, what the fuck's the point of doing it?

14:50Sir Alastair Cook: What could have been, looking back, what could have been done to have eased that in those days? You know what I mean? Talking to people?

15:02David Lloyd: It's a great question, Kat. I think in a lot of sports, in all sports, having done this show with Leon McKenzie, in that time and even the time before in sort of Bumble's time if you went to somebody in management with that issue you would have just got you would have easily got moved on I think up until the last up until Marcus this is why he's a hero when he came out and said what he said and did what he did I think it made the world of sport look up and go right there is issues there is a problem there are there are these underlining problems in there and it's not a weakness, it's an illness.

15:43David Lloyd: For me, it's a silent illness that nobody really knows and people are frightened to understand. And I think until Trez did what he did, I think a lot of people in a lot of sports tread it as a man up. Get on with it, what are you on about? You've got money, you're playing for England, you're doing this annually.

15:57Phil Tufnell: How did you go when you're moving out to Newcastle to play in the UK? I was fine. No problem?

16:03David Lloyd: No problem at all. That's why I go back to that under-19 trip, that early part, that's the scarring part. because once I got beyond the second warm-up game, I was fine. I was in the rhythm.

16:18Phil Tufnell: What are you missing? What is it that you are missing? Kids, wife, home, familiarity?

16:24David Lloyd: The whole package, familiarity.

16:26Phil Tufnell: Because when you leave Newcastle and you play at Edgbaston, you're not at home.

16:31David Lloyd: I think it's a little bit like, well, is that the PDSD there, post-traumatic, it's a bit like that. I think it's that initial, I'm going back. I think it's, I'm going back to Pakistan again. Do you know what I mean? It's that place, that place. And it's not Pakistan. It could have been India. It could have been the West Indies. It could have been Australia. It could have been anywhere. It was me leaving home for that first time, which really set me back. And I think it set me back on nearly every tour that I went on. And when Nasser was saying he's underprepared, he gets better as the series goes on.

17:04David Lloyd: He's homesick. they're all going, he's homesick this. I was like, yeah, keep saying that. Keep saying that. That's not a problem to me. If you want to see it, I'm not going to come back at you. Because what I know and where my mindset is and where my mentality is, I'm in a place where you don't want to know where I am.

17:22Michael Vaughan: But I tell you what, the professionalism of the backroom team, because I was captain on that trip, 2004 to South Africa,

17:28David Lloyd: I didn't know that.

17:30Michael Vaughan: So Kurt Russell, the physio, is obviously dealing with... All I used to get a call, and it was as simple as this, and they used to ring you, didn't you, when you used to get to the airport? Yeah. He's on the plane down to London, because you'd obviously get the plane from Newcastle down to Heathrow, and I'd get a call saying, don't worry, he's on the plane. I had no clue that he was seeing a breathing test.

17:49Steve Harmison: Would you have done anything different? Like, now, if you would have gone back... Because, actually, when you... I mean, it's like I turned up in 2005. I didn't know. First tour, he... Like, literally, I turned up to Pakistan, and you and Freddie were sharing a room. I turned up the day before the game, literally knew no one apart from Belly. And who's the first person knocking on the door? Harmi. Right, lad, nice to meet you. Come next door.

18:11David Lloyd: Because I knew what it was like.

18:14Steve Harmison: I tried to make it easier for anybody new coming on. I always look and go, Jesus Christ, like... This is after 2005 where you guys were the big stars and I joined that next tour. I was just like, bloody hell, Harmi. I'll never forget that. Never forget that, the first person knocking on the door was Steve Harmi. And I always thought you'd always do everything else for anyone else, but you wouldn't do it for yourself.

18:34David Lloyd: Yeah, but I felt as though what I did, my coping mechanisms from that, like Kirk telling you that he's on the plane, he's coming down, my coping mechanisms was that I needed to be around people. The minute I was in my own head, I was a dangerous human being, to me, more than anything else. The reason why that we had, you know, Fred knew everything about it.

18:55Phil Tufnell: Oh, goodness said, did you confide in Andrew?

18:57Michael Vaughan: Well, another thing, though...

18:58David Lloyd: Keezy and Fred were two... I mean, this is the hard part about being... talking the way we talk about the ashes and what's happening and Rob being in the job that he's in. The way he was in that 2004 series, he knew because he was my roommate in the academy trip. In the academy trip, I never went back after Christmas. John Abrahams didn't fly back with a team because I refused Point Black to go back to Australia, to Adelaide, because I didn't think it was... I thought it was shit. I didn't think it was very good. I thought it was like... We lived in this big brother house. We were taught to eat, drink, cook this stuff.

19:34David Lloyd: And I'm like, I'm married, I've got a mortgage, I've got two kids. And these fuckers are teaching me how to cook food. It was an under-19 trip rather than anything else. So I was stubborn that way, not going back. And John Abrams didn't fly with the team. He came north, stayed with me for two days, convinced me to go back to Australia. And I only went back because Jimmy Ormond had gone missing on the New Zealand trip. Which way, gone missing. He went missing, didn't he?

20:02Michael Vaughan: You went missing. Jimmy Ormond, Sir Fletch, I always remember it. I think we were in Queenstown. It was New Zealand, you went missing. Queenstown, and we'd had this few days off, and we'd been up on the hills. Craig White got injured going down one of the... We were at the Winter Olympics, but it wasn't. You know, what's the skeleton thing? It was a dry one. Chalky White, he'd fallen off, he'd got injured. Someone else on a bungee, they'd got injured. I remember Fletch doing this team meeting, and no Ormond. And suddenly Jimmy Ormond strolls in. with a pint and a fag. Just sat in the corner. What a character he was.

20:37David Lloyd: He's gone missing. John Abraham just convinced me. Jimmy Ormond has gone missing. There's a chance that you and Belly could go to New Zealand. Belly came, didn't he? Yeah, he did. I went back to Adelaide and I dislocated my shoulder and I had to go home. Belly came over to New Zealand. But to answer yours, I always felt anybody that's coming in on a tour, for what I was going through, I wanted to make sure that nobody felt my way, but without telling them. Keezy and Fred knew. And all the things I used to take on tour, which were laughed at, and yous have laughed at, and I've seen... Dark boy, dark boy.

21:18David Lloyd: I'm coming to this bit. It's true. It is true. It is true a little bit. I'm coming to this bit. But I would take things on tour to make sure my room was always... Arms and arms. Always had something in. That was Sri Lanka. Arms and arms. That was Sri Lanka. Arms and arms.

21:32Steve Harmison: It was Pakistan, but... Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India.

21:35David Lloyd: The Pakistan bit, where I've got to correct Mick on the pads bit... You didn't have pads, because I... I didn't. He didn't have pads. He didn't have any knots on my door. I didn't have pads. I know, I looked in his bag.

21:45Michael Vaughan: I was like, I can see a thigh pad.

21:46David Lloyd: I didn't have pads. I didn't. I'm driving 40 that tour. But the honest truth about that one... You can't fit them all in, can you? The honest truth about that one, It wasn't white pads, it was blue pads. It was the Pakistan trip, which you started on, then went off. Yeah, you went off. No, you played all of it. You played all those three games.

22:05Michael Vaughan: Show a bold speed of luck. No, you didn't. I played the last two. I missed the first one. Who played the first one? Tres Captain. But he didn't play. Should have won that game.

22:12David Lloyd: Yeah, so the tactical packing at the start, right, was I didn't want to take an extra bag. Here he comes. So I didn't want to take an extra bag. so in the summer we had done this thing at Gunnham Moor and Gunnham Moor's sister company was Unicorn Dart Company Dart Boards and everything that so we went into Gunnham Moor during the Ashes Test Match at Nottingham and I'm looking at this stand and I was like that'd be brilliant for tour so I said to Russell Evans go arrest him he sadly passed away a few years ago I said Russ I want one of them for when we go away not a problem got it sorted so I'm ready to pack everything up I can't fit everything in so with us not being able to fit everything in white pads blue pads dartboard I have worked the theory right that in 31 day at Nationals so far in my career I've batted eight times seven or eight times I think it's good logic it's good logic and then I'm sorry

23:06Steve Harmison: you didn't have white pads no no you didn't have white he didn't have any pads he didn't have any pads I didn't he doesn't

23:12David Lloyd: the thing that tipped a balance over the edge was was confirmed it was that my captain number four batter for England in one day in National Cricket was Michael Vaughan, who averaged 28 in one-day cricket. So the likelihood of me and him having the pads on at the same time... LAUGHTER

23:27Sir Alastair Cook: Very, very small. That's clever, that is. Very small. That's clever, that is.

23:30David Lloyd: So hence the blue pads in the brand-new cellophane went into the not-going pile, and the dartboard went into the underneath. We had a really good...

23:39Steve Harmison: We had a great set, but now... Because when you then left, I took over that thing, and then Unicorn had the strep around the door. So you didn't have to take the stand with you.

23:47David Lloyd: The stand with you, yeah.

23:48Steve Harmison: Actually, on the front page of the Australia of the Times, as I came home, literally had a unicorn. I used to have a live-turned-down deal with a unicorn. Should I have a dartboard?

23:58David Lloyd: How was expected? He's good. You are responsible.

24:00Steve Harmison: He is responsible for my dart love.

24:02David Lloyd: Who's the best darter? Jimmy's all right. Oh, he's good. He's good. We had a dart league. There was me, you. Jimmy. Jimmy was in it. Fred was in it. Fred was in it. Swanee was in it. And the dark horse, was it? Tim Ambrose. Tim Ambrose.

24:16Michael Vaughan: Oh, yeah. He's good on the guitar as well, too. He's a singer. Songwriter. He was decent.

24:20David Lloyd: He was decent. He was a dark horse. He needed a pair of pliers to take the darts out from Fred. Yeah. He just... Like a javelin. We had inter-connecting doors.

24:30Michael Vaughan: Well, I was going to say that. So, Phil Neill, the England manager, used to come up to me as the captain and say, we've got this happening in the future, you know, these are the tours, these are the way we're going. And he'd always used to say, are you all right with Fred and Harmi having an inter-connecting room? He'd always ask me, I could do whatever they want. Yeah. Of course they can. But Fred's scared of the dark, wasn't he? He's scared of the dark, yeah. He's scared of the dark.

24:50David Lloyd: Did you see my bathroom light on? He did. Scared of the dark. Left your bathroom light on.

24:55Michael Vaughan: I've got my two faces quick. Big Steve and Fred are scared of the dark.

25:01David Lloyd: There was one, I think Moulton was where it benefited more than anybody else because we got to the... I was there. I was in Moulton. We got, it was a, I mean, it was the Holiday Inn.

25:11Phil Tufnell: Bikes was there. Holiday Inn.

25:13David Lloyd: Crystal Mark Jenkins went for a swim in the morning. It was the darkness was just coming up. and we were clapping him going in because we knew the swimming pool was full of bricks. He had his speed... He did, I remember. Put his towel down and then, go on, dive in. It was full of bricks. It was full of bricks. Surfers, there were surfers in there. When we got to the... CMGA. When we got to the hotel, it was like carry on up the Kaiba. There was just like one line of tiles to the reception and the lady on reception was like, welcome to the England cricket team, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're not quite ready yet from a hotel room point of view.

25:44David Lloyd: She was like, you're the air conditioning. air-conditioner, not hot water. The rooms haven't got both in. So me and Fred Lawker, each other, right, we'll have one of each. We'll get in one and we'll get washed in the other.

25:56Michael Vaughan: Do you remember that Pakistan trip that we were at Heathrow and I had a problem with my ear? And we had a doctor for the first time. Peter Gregory. First time we were ever taking a doctor on tour to Pakistan. So I used to go to a marriage, remember? And I was in all sorts of pain. So he sends me to a dentist in London, in the afternoon, we're flying the following morning. For your ear? He said, I think it's your tooth at the back. So I go to this dentist, drilling in a way. There we go. I'm like, oh, God, get back to the hotel, right, I'll fly, get to Pakistan. We play water parlour, do you remember?

26:27Michael Vaughan: Oh, it's bad. I don't know where we were, maybe Lahore. Water parlour, that first afternoon, we're all having a bit of a laugh. I get in this pool, I'm in agony. Go to the doctor, I say, look, it's not worked. It's the first time we've ever had a doctor, and so we'll have to send you to a doctor. I go to a Pakistani doctor, He gets the light into looking around. He goes, oh, you've got an ear infection. There was never anything wrong with my tooth.

26:52David Lloyd: I've got a better one with it for that one. On that same trip, right, we've got a doctor for the first time on that trip, he's telling us about taking malaria tablets. Malaria tablet, malaria tablet. Yeah, I know this, I know this. He took a malaria tablet, sneezed and it went that way. That's true. He was like, he was dissolving it with water and thinking, what chance have we got?

27:12Steve Harmison: He took his bowling boots on tour, didn't he? Do you remember? He got belly out. He got belly out.

27:17Phil Tufnell: I was a jackpot.

27:19Steve Harmison: I did, I promise you. He got belly out. Nipped away. Top of off. Provence on defence.

27:24Michael Vaughan: Didn't take any... He never saw a pill, but took his bowling... Well, Wayne Morton back in the United... He used to bowl all day.

27:31Phil Tufnell: He and Theo King, who were our fixer. Theo was our fixer.

27:35Michael Vaughan: They'd bowl all day. Do you remember Theo King? Remember how much money on Atherton's tour? I did. Atherton's tour. No, it was a South Africa series, the Dot Balls. Theo had one of those spread bets on Atherton Dot Balls. Spread bets on Atherton Dot Balls. And every time, others...

27:54Phil Tufnell: Getting back to that Moulton, I've got there early. Holiday Inn, it's a franchise, it was a franchise, and a chap from London had it, and they were just doing it up, and I got there very early, your room's not ready yet. So I had to wait about four hours, and then I got the call, your room's ready so I'll take you up to your room and as they got up onto this first floor there's people hammering the carpet in and he said this is your room the door he puts the key in push the door and the whole lot fell it's not on hinges oh right so we walk in he said let me undraw your curtains for you he went like that and all curtains fell down he said let's I'll put the lights on put the lights and the old fused everything's gone can you come back downstairs Yes, once again.

28:41Phil Tufnell: It was brilliant.

28:42Sir Alastair Cook: It was the day in 05 when we first landed there. And obviously it's a dry state and you can't drink a pack of time. But if you sign a form and basically declare you're an alcoholic,

28:51Michael Vaughan: you can get alcohol.

28:52Sir Alastair Cook: It was the first thing called the England players. It was a queue.

28:57David Lloyd: I mean, that Pakistan trip was a belter because Bumble and Walt did a quiz. They would do a quiz. Two media, two players. And me and Fred were late getting there, so we came last. I think we were Reggie... I think it was, like, me, Reggie, Hater. Oh, yeah. Fred, and I think it might have been Norrie. Norrie. It was Norrie, the four of us in this day. Anyway, we came last because we were...

29:21Michael Vaughan: David and Norrie, weren't it? News of the world. News of the world.

29:23David Lloyd: We weren't concentrating.

29:25Michael Vaughan: Anyway, at the end of it, him and Walt have given it...

29:28David Lloyd: Bumble and Walt have given it this big, you know, about being last. And we got these two clocks, alarm clocks. There were mosque alarm clocks. One was blue. Call to prayer. Call to prayer alarm clocks. So he hammered us, absolutely hammered us in front of everybody. So we went out and I'll look in the hotel in Lahore where your sort of balcony looks over reception. We'd seen him go into the restaurant. So we'd go downstairs, get a key to his room. We'd set one for four o 'clock, stuck under his bed and set one for five o 'clock, stuck behind his telly. I'd let him finish the story. This thing went off.

30:01Phil Tufnell: So at four o 'clock this thing's gone off. Like, what the? So I find it, I turn it off, get back to bed in another hour, the other one goes on. So I get down into breakfast and them two, him and Flipping Freddy, you sleep all right last night, absolutely killing yourself.

30:24Michael Vaughan: Stick to Cricket is brought to you by Betfair.

30:30Sir Alastair Cook: You've talked about the mental health and everything, but then became number one bowler in the world. What? How did that happen? No, sorry, I'm not going to be rude. 7-3, 11.

30:44Michael Vaughan: I'll go back to his debut. I got a few runs. It was at Chesler Street.

30:49Sir Alastair Cook: I think I batted the whole game. You did, yeah. Oh, well done.

30:53Michael Vaughan: But Goffey was the kingpin of English cricket around that time. He was the one coming through. It was a one-day game. He was the one at Yorkshire that was in the England camp. I remember Goffey seeing me a few days later. He said, well played, mate. He said, you played great. I said, I'll tell you what, there's a kid at Durham who's a bowler. Yeah. I said, he's awkward. He's got this big, tall fella. His arms and legs are everywhere. He's a bit wayward at times, but Jesus, he's quick. Yeah. Anyway, I went, Armisen. Yeah. I said, get him to the England management, just get him on the radar. I said, he might take two or three years to get it right, but I said, he's got a chance.

31:26David Lloyd: That's where Fletch was good. I mean, I'd learned a lot about Fletch after Fletch had gone through Jeff Cook and the way the conversation Jeff had with Duncan. And I probably appreciated Fletch more when he wasn't there than when he was there. And that's nothing against the likes of Peter and people after that. But my turning point, if you ask for that question, was we played Bangladesh away, your first overseas tour as captain. Played in Dhaka. I got nine in the match, got nine in the match. And on the way to Chittagong, I didn't play in Chittagong because my back spasmed, I couldn't bowl. And a lot of people were writing me off saying I'd went home and I wasn't quite right and I was nearly right.

32:12David Lloyd: I should have went to Sri Lanka. You went to Sri Lanka straight after. That's right, yeah. Should have went to Sri Lanka, but I didn't go. I went to Loughborough. My back was still sore. And I was like, I was trying, I pushed the boundaries of I'm not ready to play because I didn't want to go. Because I knew if I'd went, I wouldn't be fit for the first Test match. And all them issues and problems I have normally for the start of a tour would manifest for a longer period. So I was looking after myself more than I was looking after anything else. And I was written off. There was a couple of articles that went about saying, just move on from him.

32:45David Lloyd: And then Paul Winsper, a guy who was Durham's fitness coach, then went to Newcastle United. he read these articles and got in contact with me and he said he'd shown them to Sir Bobby Robson Sir Bobby Robson said he can come and train in Newcastle if if you wanted so I went in and for nearly nine weeks I trained at Newcastle nearly every day but Sir Bobby was great with me first up he was like you're all in or you're not in so you you eat with us you train with us you do what we do and that's it I don't want any you know if you start straight off start becoming Billy Big so we'll we'll ask you to leave and I thought I knew what it took to be a professional sportsman and until that nine weeks I realized I was fucking no any yeah I was no any he took me in the gym you know he's like look at Alan Shearer look at Gary Speed look at Shear Given you know young James Milner you look at the reason why these are playing international sport is over the next few weeks you follow what they do and eat and drink and I came back and went to the Caribbean.

33:51David Lloyd: And I hadn't told anybody that I was at Newcastle. Nobody even from ECB knew I was there. And when I turned up to the Caribbean, I was... I wasn't lighter than what I was, but I was...

34:03Michael Vaughan: Do you remember when the Caribbean, he turns up, right? We knew he'd been training. And suddenly, day one, he arrives on the pitch, warming up, and he had one of them balls, didn't you?

34:13David Lloyd: Mm-hm.

34:14Michael Vaughan: Those, what were they called? The big Swiss balls. No, not the big Swiss balls that you do. but we can make Steve walk it. I went, hello. I'm in the Swiss ball. Swiss ball.

34:21David Lloyd: I'm going to go Swiss roll. I'm in the Swiss ball doing all these stretches on, bloody hell. For that nine weeks, that's what transformed me. Yeah. Because Paul had put my body back together the first time when I came back from Pakistan. I basically had a bad back, but I wasn't. It was just grown pants. And then in this period, he... They taught me how and what and why and what a professional sportsman should look like. How he eats in the morning, how he eats at lunchtime and the training that you do in between. Not only was it eye-opening, but it was so beneficial. That was the first time me, Hoggy, Simon, Fred and Gilo in that first Test match in Jamaica.

35:04David Lloyd: That's right. The first time we had bowl together. And from there, it was a...

35:08Sir Alastair Cook: A bowl speed light, eight for... Seven for 12. Seven for 12 and took the place past Storm. Yeah, I mean... And mainly that was just mainly then down to pure fitness. Fitness. But then...

35:20David Lloyd: Yeah, but if you're... I mean, he's a prime example. I mean, concentration factor, why he got 12 ,500 Test match runs. His concentration factor was at the highest, highest point, highest level. One of the fittest blocks that's played cricket in the England cricket team. You know, it goes hand in hand. If you're physically fit, you've got a better chance of making better decisions. execution of whatever your plan you're trying to get. And that, for me, was the difference between going on that tour and then for the next tours.

35:50Steve Harmison: Did you still have that anxiety, though, when you went that first week on that tour? Yeah. You still did? Still had, yeah.

35:57David Lloyd: We were in Jamaica, weren't we? We thought he staged this with NASA. I still think he had staged it with NASA. You had a go at NASA, didn't you, on that second warm-up game? NASA was at short leg, ball went to square leg, out towards the boundary. Simon's a fine leg, I think it was. The guy was bowling inside edge. And Simon had run all the way around. Nasser's standing at short leg, didn't go for it. We get a wicket and he's come flying in and nailed Nasser. I mean, nailed him. And we were like, this has been staged. This is Michael Putnam. Old captain. It's old captain. And it wasn't. But that was one of the first times that we were like, you know, it's sort of marking your territory sort of thing.

36:39David Lloyd: Who was captain? You were captain? He was captain.

36:41Phil Tufnell: You've had a go at Nass? He had a go at Nass, didn't you?

36:43Steve Harmison: And it's a short leg.

36:45David Lloyd: He took it at his short leg. I mean, Nassar had the best time in the world at short leg during that West Indies series. He had four fast bowlers, just fending them off everywhere. Thank you. But during that game, I was struggling, even up to the first Test match. I can think of two or three games where... ..the first Test match in Port Elizabeth, for obvious reasons I've mentioned, The first Test match in... We won there. Did we win in Portland? Well, they picked the witty-keeper, didn't they? Tolislecki, didn't pick Boucher. David de Villiers and the Stairs did.

37:16Michael Vaughan: The Hawks had got a couple earlier, didn't he? He got Smith out first over. We won there and then the 05 Oval Test match,

37:25David Lloyd: dear one, I was having a real bad time, like mentally. I had a struggle there and there was a couple more along the way where, in hindsight, you're probably looking back at it and thinking if I was a proper team man, which I always thought I was, a proper team man would have tapped him on the shoulder and said, mate, I can't tell you why, but you probably shouldn't play me in this game because I'm not quite right. And more often than not, if I look back, it would likely be the first Test match of nearly every two I went on.

37:58Michael Vaughan: Stick to Cricket is brought to you by Betfair.

38:02Phil Tufnell: What about that delivery there in Australia that finished up a second slip. Talking about first Test match.

38:09David Lloyd: You leave it into that perfectly. I just tried too hard. I literally tried too hard. Just picture it. There's nobody said a word.

38:19Phil Tufnell: And it's gone to Flintoff. Andrew's just gone. As if it's a normal thing. I think that we say, has he nicked that? No, he's just bowled it straight, hasn't he?

38:27David Lloyd: Hoggy was the best. Hoggy's a fine leg. He's run in. He got to where the 30-yard circle would be. And Hoggy's got his arms in the air. That's it. And then he's gone. Didn't you? And then he's gone. Then Hoggy's gone. Twice he's gone, yes. Yes. And then he's gone. He starts losing it. Didn't Hoggy normally take first ball though? Did he normally bowl first ball? Hoggy, the first time I ever took the first ball was in, no, was it Lords in 05? And then I took it. Then it comes to preparation, like was being criticised in this Ashes series. I didn't play the week before in Adelaide and I was nowhere near ready to play in that game.

39:05Michael Vaughan: So Adelaide was a warm-up game before 6-7. We had three warm-up games then as well, didn't we?

39:10David Lloyd: So I got injured, I did side in the first one, didn't play that much in the second one, didn't play the third one, because the third one wasn't a 13-man-a-side one, it was 11-11, it was the first class. And that didn't come on until right on 20 past 10, or 20 past before the toss, so it was like, right, I'm not playing in it. And I was nowhere near fit, tried to bowl fast, I tell a joke of visualisation and you think, well, Langer got hit in the arm, Ponta got hit in the head, it loads, I'll pitch it up, swing it, Nick. And I'm like, I've got 95 % of it spot on. Just missed him out. But it was weird.

39:45David Lloyd: Gilo came over, put his arm round us. And in them situations, it's sort of, it's fight or flight, innit? You sink or swim. You either stand up, because when you're gone back... But nothing happened. No, nothing happened.

39:57Phil Tufnell: Flintoff's just took it like that and thrown it. You've ended your follow-through with your shirt like you used to do. He's pulled his shirt up and walked back. I was commentating on it. I was commentating it. I just sort of went, oh. But you're right, Oggie's come in, yeah. Oggie's like that.

40:11Michael Vaughan: I always feel sorry for anyone that bowls a really bad ball these days in Test cricket. Most people thought it's the Army. The Army. In the Joffre ball one in the T20. Can you laugh at him?

40:21David Lloyd: I was laughing at him. Oh, yeah. Cookie said you bowled all right. I think he bowled all right. I bowed 15 overs that day. I bowed 15 overs. And again, these moments in your career when you look back and you think, yeah, 7 for 12, everybody talks about. But the mental fortitude you had to come through to get to 6 o 'clock that day. When at 59 minutes past 10, you've bowled the second ball of second slip, first ball of second slip. And you've got 45 ,000 people in Brisbane when you go down to Fine Lake aren't singing Christmas carols. They're at you. Yeah, and I tell this when I do the Q &As, and I've always been reluctant to sort of see it publicly big time, but I watched the news that night, and on Sky News that night, I'll never forget, that was the first thing that was on.

41:10David Lloyd: Right. And the second thing that was on, there was two soldiers, English soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and that always stuck with me because it came back to me and going, what the fuck's this all about? I mean, that made me realise what cricket was. It was a job and it was something that I enjoyed doing. But that second newsreel was when that delivery got left in Australia. It just got left behind. Because it was like... I mean, I put hugely into perspective of what I'd just done compared to what was happening in other parts of the world. So, whenever anybody asks me how long that delivery...

41:46David Lloyd: It probably lasted about eight hours.

41:48Michael Vaughan: It's just a game of cricket. Exactly. It's just a game of cricket. You've got an incredible mentality. I mean, obviously, you've come through depression. You've had injuries in your career. Recently, you've not been too well. I know you've not spoken a great deal about it, but you've not been incredibly well. I've glandular fever, yeah. You seem to be able to bounce back. You seem to keep going.

42:10David Lloyd: Yeah. I think sometimes it's... I mean, I wasn't blessed. I wasn't blessed educationally.

42:18Michael Vaughan: Well, your best line to me, how did you get on with your exams? He said, I've got A in every one. Absent for every exam.

42:25David Lloyd: I entered 11 exams and I got A for every one. I was absent. I left school at 15. I don't know. I mean, I spent most of the week in a corridor. I'd walk into a classroom, am I sitting out here? Yep, I might as well not be here. And at 15 I left. I didn't go back. Didn't do any exams. Waited till the threshold of 16, got an apprentice on a bricklayer and for the next two years. In between that, first year at Durham, when I made my debut, didn't play in 97. That year I did the bricklaying course. And at the end of 97, I bowled in a net about August, September time. I was having problems with my back and it was just growing pains.

43:03David Lloyd: And Jeff Cook, Booney tells the story as well because David Boone was the captain. and Booney, Jeff had said, like what you said to Coffey, Jeff was, I've got one, but I don't want you to be visual when he's bowling in the net because if he sees you, then I don't know what will happen. And Booney said, he told the watch from upstairs, one of the boxers upstairs, and Booney said after three balls, pads were on, and down he came and he wanted a face, and at the end of the net, he came and I remember Booney coming to me and saying, what's the situation, what's the story, explained cricket wasn't really high on my agenda.

43:41David Lloyd: I was a football man, not interested in really the cricket properly. And he just said, I want you to be fit for April. If you're fit for April, you'll play cricket for Durham. And he pushed Geoff all the way through that winter to make sure I was fit. The first game of the season against Warwickshire in 98, he picked me and I played. It was brilliant. It was weird. It was a little Viking. Do you know when you get now at the start of the year, you've got your media day and you get your whites and your blues and everything like that. I'd just been given my first lot of blue kit with me name on the back.

44:13Steve Harmison: Did you take it with you or not bother?

44:14David Lloyd: No, I didn't. He took it off me. He took it off me. He said, give that back to the cricket secretary. I said, what? Just getting a kit with me name on. Give it back to the cricket secretary. He went, you'll play every first-class match that you'll fit this summer. You will not play in white ball cricket. Give that back. and I didn't play until... And actually, when I did play, it made me one-day debut. It was by accident because we played at Somerset and two players got injured in the warm-up and I was the only one left and he had to pick me. But he just said, I'm not... I want to give you... And he taught me how to bowl log spells.

44:50David Lloyd: I mean, there was times... I mean, we talk about bowlers now and managing workloads. Fuck me, Booney. There was times after nine, ten overs, I'm looking over. Hello. The passes are on. I was like, that fucker awake there. Somebody tap him on the shoulder. Collie, ask him if I'm still bowling. Yeah, you're still bowling. I think I bowled over 600 overs in my first season as an 18-year-old first-class cricketer. And he was brilliant. He was an amazing, amazing man. So my education into the game, from Booney's point of view, was good. I fucked up a few times, alcohol-wise, and he kicked me into line.

45:27Phil Tufnell: But you also mentioned Jeff Cook a couple of times. He's just a man of cricket, isn't he? He's just a man of cricket.

45:33David Lloyd: I'm not sitting here for that. There are people that turn around and you say, if it wasn't for him, I would not be the person I was. I mean, Durham, I don't think England would be the... It's large parts of England's success without Durham. And then you go back into that without Geoff Cook. I mean, other than Yorkshire and Surrey in the last 25 years, nobody's produced more cricketers than Durham.

46:03Michael Vaughan: Stick to Cricket is brought to you by Betfair. Where do you sit with that, with Durham? I mean, obviously, test status.

46:12David Lloyd: Is that hitting the North East? No, I think it's the right thing not to have test status. We couldn't attract people to come. We should have a lot of one-day games. But we weren't getting... I mean, I commented on a test match at Durham. It was England against Sri Lanka. It was at the end of May. It was freezing cold. Sri Lankans are freezing. It was dark at half past five. There was 4 ,500 people on the ground. No point. 2016.

46:37Phil Tufnell: Eh? 2016.

46:37David Lloyd: That's the one, yeah, yeah.

46:38Phil Tufnell: You were chance in August. Chance in August, yeah. Play up in Durham, of course.

46:42David Lloyd: But they wouldn't give us it. So we were bank...

46:45Michael Vaughan: But don't you think that's... It's such a hotbed of cricket and talent up there. Why would you take away that stuff? Play it at the right time. You've got to play it at the right time.

46:53David Lloyd: But you've also got... I would imagine you've got contractual obligations with other test match venues that they get a sort of first choice, I would imagine. It must have been, because we always got a Bangladesh test match in the start of the summer. Remember when we played the West Indies in 2007? Snowed off.

47:14Michael Vaughan: Was it the coldest test match ever? That's when my pants fell down. That's, yeah. No, I got that. That was the coldest match. He's lost his trolleys.

47:22Phil Tufnell: Lost his trolleys. They've come off.

47:25David Lloyd: I can't remember the coaches now. I'm an Australian guy. Not Stewie Lola, the one before. I'll never forget him.

47:32Phil Tufnell: He stood there.

47:33David Lloyd: No, no. He stood and he shouted at the top of his voice. He stopped this session. Three or four of the West Indies lads are doing fielding practice with their batting gloves on. So we didn't get the test matches at the right time, but we still produced the players. And the players we produced, Colley was World Cup captain, Ashes winners, Stokes. We produced some players, not just for England, but players that played vital parts in English cricket. And largely that was Jeff. You're still doing that now.

48:04Michael Vaughan: I mean, McKinney's coming through, Minto's coming through.

48:07David Lloyd: Minto's good. I've seen Minto as an 11-year-old and I reckon he bought 80 mile an hour at an 11-year-old. You see me just Charlie and James played for Durham, Charlie with Northumberland. And I reckon as an 11-year-old, he was the fastest. I was like, he's 11. This thing was pissing through. He had a difficult year last year. He had a difficult personal time last year. But I think he'll kick on this year and Durham will use him more. But we produced players. Jeff was amazing. Jeff wouldn't go to the... I have this, and we might disagree on this, but the public school and the state school. Now, the state school and the private schools.

48:49David Lloyd: Jeff wouldn't go to the private school areas. He'd go to harder, more run-down areas, the coal mining towns, to get the Harmersons from Asherton. Well, from clubs.

48:58Phil Tufnell: He'd go to clubs. He'd go clubs and he'd get them,

49:01David Lloyd: and he would get them from more difficult areas rather than... He would look at the more affluent areas and go, it's a rich babysitting service. By 16, that kid doesn't want to play cricket because he'd been dropped off there by a mum and dad while they'd go off and do something else. Where you go to these clubs, these mining villages, mining towns, which these clubs are centre of the area. and these kids are wanting to play cricket. They're wanting to go. And that's where Geoff was. Geoff was an amazing man, talent spotter.

49:30Phil Tufnell: It's very important. There's two areas. You've got your private schools which will produce cricketers, but your state schools won't do. They never have done, but clubs do. Clubs, that's why the money is.

49:42Michael Vaughan: But the state schools don't produce them, but you play a bit and then you play at your club. I never played at school. It's a nonsense. I played at my state school. We didn't. I did.

49:51Phil Tufnell: I never played.

49:52Michael Vaughan: I'll just tell you, so we've created a T20 state school competition that's launching this year, right? OK. So we went into this discussion about a year or so ago about this taking place. And the conversation starts with, look, there's never been a state school representing itself at the home of cricket, ever. There's been state school players play for foundations and clubs, but a state school has never, ever gone to Lords and played as a school. So let's create this tournament. The MCC, brilliant. Yep, we'll host the finals day. We went round the town and said, right, how many teams realistically...

50:26Michael Vaughan: Boys and girls under 15s, T20, how many do you think we'll get? We went, phew. We end up with the first year 300 state school teams for the boys and if we can get 50 to 80 girls, that'll be a massive success. We're over 1 ,100 that have signed up for this year's first... Combined? No, so we've got over 400 girls teams that have entered for this year and there'll be finals days. We're hoping that the northern finals will be at Heddenley and, you know, I think Sussex, Somerset and Worcester, I think they've given up their ground for some finals as well. But on September 10th, 2026, there'll be four state schools representing themselves, two girls, two boys, for the first time ever.

51:03Steve Harmison: Is it knockout?

51:04Michael Vaughan: Yeah, knockout, it'll be, yeah, yeah. So it starts in April when they're back at school and, you know, if you've not got a ground at your school, there's local clubs or the independent sector that have been brilliant, so they can use the facilities that we have. So that tells me that cricket, we all bag cricket. You know, we're in cricket, but we all say, oh, you know.

51:23Sir Alastair Cook: It is there.

51:24Michael Vaughan: The first year that you create a tournament.

51:27David Lloyd: It is there, but it's not at state school. I've never played at state school.

51:31Michael Vaughan: Yeah, but maybe it's because you didn't have the opportunity to have a tournament that gives you that chance to go and play at the home of cricket. When you cricket at the club, everything went to the club.

51:40Phil Tufnell: What about Moeen Ashraf's academy?

51:43Michael Vaughan: Yeah, fantastic. That's so fantastic. But what I'm saying is this tournament here, There has been cricket played at state school because I played it. And there are state schools. There's Myers College around Preston, I think, area. They got to the semi-final of the schools. There is a schools tournament, but generally the independent sector dominated. We played once a year.

52:01David Lloyd: If we played twice a year, it's because we won our first game and then we played a private school in the second game and got whopped. I mean, the thing from a state school's point of view is, right, if you've got a team, great. But you teach them from the club. You get them from the club. This is where I have been a big pusher of trying to say, If we're going to put money into that element of grassroots cricket, it's got to improve the facilities at the club level because I've watched a lot of age group cricket in the last five, ten years and maybe more. And it's get away from the goodwill of the guy from Northumberland under the 11s as best mates and he does the tees at such and such cricket clubs.

52:40David Lloyd: So we'll get them to host Northumberland against Cumbria and you end up going and playing on the outfield. It's a waste of time for even 11-year-olds. Stick money into areas of club cricket to improve the facilities, make it better. So when they play at representative cricket, they play on a decent pitch, they play on a flat outfield, and the facilities are good. The thing with a state school is if you'd walked in and you'd give state schools a budget, they've got no money anyway.

53:03Michael Vaughan: Let's clarify this. All they'll get is if they haven't got a pitch, a pitch will be found for them. You're basically asking teachers because they're going to have to give up their time to put this to them. So teachers, look, there's over 1 ,100 teams. That's in the first year.

53:18David Lloyd: And it's great. And I really don't want to be too negative towards it, but I look at it through my time at school and seeing the state schools. You were never out of school. The brief times I went, yeah. But you try and teach kids at school. You've got a classroom with 20 kids, 28 kids in a class. You've got one school teacher who maybe is at village cricket level trying to teach 28 kids how to play cricket. and after about 15 minutes, you've got 28 kids working through the theory that one person bowls it, one person bats it, one person stands with a bit of keeping gloves on behind it, and the other 20-odd are standing in the field with their fingers up.

53:56David Lloyd: And then little Johnny's starting a wrestling match from what he's seen last night over there, and the other ones are bringing a piss out of each other over there, and the teacher's trying to... This ball is hard. It's a dangerous game. And I think at school level, as much as it's great to try and push it that way...

54:12Michael Vaughan: You have to start somewhere, aren't you?

54:15David Lloyd: I've got to go towards the club.

54:16Michael Vaughan: No, but you start a tournament, you've got over 1 ,100 teams, fantastic. The year after, there'll be more. And guess what will happen? There'll be players that play that have never played cricket before. Yes. And they'll go, where can I play more cricket? Guess where you have to go? Your local team. Your local club. And that's what's going to happen from a state school team that has got, you're right, three or four players that will already be playing. And there'll be seven or eight who just want to miss biology, miss history, because you get a bit of time off, because you're going to play a game of cricket.

54:42Michael Vaughan: And that's how you get... Yeah, correct.

54:44Sir Alastair Cook: But that's how I started.

54:46Michael Vaughan: Most of my team at state level were footballers. But they wanted to miss a lesson, so they came and joined the cricket team. Let's be clear on this.

54:54Phil Tufnell: Each board, you know, the county board, will have a bevy of coaches who go into schools. That's what they're doing. And so the teacher who has to have time off, not necessary, because there will be a coach who will be looking after that area of schools. And he'll be from the amateur board.

55:17David Lloyd: And pushing towards, and they should be pushing them towards. Yeah, and they will do that. Not them cricketers that haven't played. I'm sure they do that. Pushing them towards better clubs.

55:23Michael Vaughan: But that's exactly what will happen with these competitions.

55:26David Lloyd: You mentioned biology. Yeah. I mean, well after I'd finished even playing, there was a charity doing a charity, 10 events and 10 months to raise 10 ,000 for something in Northumberland, Asherton, and I said I'd help do... I can't remember the full instig, but I mean, I turned up and there was this blonde lady who tapped me on the shoulder and she said, you're my... What did she call me? You're my absentee. I said, right. She said, my name is Mrs Duffy, I think it was. She said, right. She says, you were supposed to be in my biology science lesson every Friday for three years and this is the first time I've ever met you.

56:09David Lloyd: Never been. Every Friday afternoon.

56:12Michael Vaughan: I used to love biology, you get them Bunsen burners going. I mean, I'd... Yeah, you get the Bunsen. Oh, is that chemistry?

56:19Sir Alastair Cook: Birds of the bees, birds of the bees. Oh, we never did. Set things on fire.

56:22Phil Tufnell: Our technical college, we just woodwork and metalwork and geometrical and engineering drawing. Double graft. Ashington. Double graft, you had. Double graft. Yeah, we were grafted. Technology. Ashington. Ashington.

56:37David Lloyd: Jack and Bobby Charlton. Jackie Milburn. Yeah. Bob, I didn't know Bob. I did. Jack's, like, last, yeah, I mean, I wish I'd knew, I wish I'd got to know Bob, but Bob doesn't get, which pisses me off, actually, with the way he's talked about in the North East, because the last five or six years of Jack's life, I used to have lunch with him every Friday at the golf club, and bless him, he was struggling by the end. What a lovely fella. Great. Great storyteller and just a great human being. I mean, he knew the pound went in the coffee machine, but if you didn't quite tell him quick enough to get the cup there, he flooded the place.

57:16David Lloyd: He was just an amazing man. Bob was dead serious. Bob was the other way, yeah.

57:21Phil Tufnell: So Jack was quite a gregarious fella and tell a story. Bob was quiet and dead serious. Don't forget, Bob was in the Munich Air disaster. That must have had a real impression on the play.

57:33David Lloyd: Yeah, he survived it. I mean, they put a statue up in Ashington of Jack. And I wouldn't go to the opening of it because Bob wasn't there. It wasn't a statue of them both. They were both born in Ashington. They were both, for me, North East legends. Bobby Charlton won the Ballon d 'Or. He was the best player in England. Arguably one of the best players ever to play the game in England. And until he was 15, he lived in Ashington. He went to the same first school as I went to. I went to the same middle school. but Jack was in the same class as me my grandfather who grandad died when he was 35 they were in the same class at school so Bob for me was a North East legend but whenever you talk about Bob in the North East especially in Asherton people don't warm to him as much as they did with Jack because Jack always went back but Bob left Bob left so Bobby left when he was 15 to chase his dream to be the best footballer he could be at Manchester United the best club in the world and he made new life down here.

58:33Phil Tufnell: Yeah.

58:33David Lloyd: And he didn't turn his back on Ashington, but a lot of people in the North East thought he did and that's why it annoys me a lot when people talk in negative terms about Sir Bobby in Ashington.

58:45Phil Tufnell: All in one at Mottram Hall, Bob. Did it? There's a plaque. Which hole? Oh, I can't remember. So me and Bob go to the Open at Birkdale and I'm driving and him and Eddie is in back. Butcher Eddie. and it's absolutely fantastic day, red hot. And we met up with him that sings, what were he called? Not Freddie and the Dreamers. Him that sings, what's that anthem at Anfield? You'll Never Walk Alone. Fairy Across the Merse.

59:17David Lloyd: Yeah, it's the same singer.

59:19Michael Vaughan: Pacemaker. Jerry and the Pacemaker.

59:21Phil Tufnell: So we met up with them, Jerry and the Pacemaker, with Jerry and his missus. It's red hot, you know, Bob's bald head. He didn't have his hat. Oh. I said, I'll have to go and buy a car, go in the village and buy a hat. And they said, oh, come in, Bob, I'd like to see you. He said, can I have one of them hats? And he put a tenner down. She said,£25, please. You've never seen his face drop like that because he was careful.

59:45David Lloyd: Well, Jack was supposed to be the same, but he used to pay, as the old wives tales in Ireland, he would buy everybody a drink, a bar drink. Pay by cheque. Pay by cheque. He would never cash it because they put up... Put the cheque behind the bar. Oh, I just like that. Good thinking that. He was good. I mean, I loved him every Friday. The reason why is his wife used to get her hairdressers done next to where the golf club is. Jack's mum was in the old people's home at the other end of the promenade. So she would drop him off, go for a walk. He'd walk his mum along the promenade. Then he'd come into the golf club for a sandwich or whatever and Pat would come and pick him up.

1:00:28David Lloyd: And obviously, Sissy died and Jack just kept coming and the old fella, it was his cousin, used to bring him. And then by the end, he'd just come on his own and he would sit and he was brilliant company. And I mean, by the end, he was frill and he was struggling and he would get anybody that would come up and sit. And I used to say, we'll go and sit, sit with Jack. And I'd go to the bar and I'd hear the lads pissing themselves, laughing. And I know what's coming back because I can hear him going and he would like, oh, cricketer's name again because he didn't know anybody's name. Cricketer's name again.

1:00:58David Lloyd: and then he would get them that's how he would get them in the conversation he would go an amazing man a bit like Sir Bobby Robson whenever when he were in Sir Bobby's company what names were

1:01:08Michael Vaughan: I've just added to me that you're doing an interview in about 10 minutes so we've got to finish with a few community questions oh no

1:01:14David Lloyd: forget the interview it's half past it's half past

1:01:20Michael Vaughan: Stick to Cricket is brought to you by Betfair let's start with this one Steve Luke Wright has stepped down as chairman of selectors. Would you be interested in that role?

1:01:34David Lloyd: I think I've tried twice. I think that ship's probably sailed for me. You've tried twice? Yeah. The first time I got an email back off the ECB, which basically was they didn't believe it was me. I mean, it was a generic email, basically like somebody from...

1:01:55Steve Harmison: Accounts. Accounts.

1:01:57David Lloyd: Dog and Duck 3rd 11s applied for this selector's role. And when it got made public, then I got a letter back off Paul Downton saying, look, apologies, we should have done it differently. So I was like, fine, it's not a problem. The second time was with Keezy. It wasn't so much the selector's role I was looking at. It was more... One of my best mates was director of cricket and I wanted to help out. He'd been helpful to me throughout my career and I wanted to see if I could help out. during that time of the interview process, which I thought was eye-opening, to see the way I like some Moe Bobat and David Court and the selection panel was working.

1:02:37David Lloyd: It was really eye-opening. In what way? Just showing the technology they've got and everything they've got.

1:02:45Steve Harmison: Well, you can average 30 and still play. Well, that comes down to choice.

1:02:50David Lloyd: That comes down to a selector's choice, as in literally every delivery from a liner length. Yeah, it is true. Liner length, speed. Yeah. The whole thing is there. Pitchbacks bloody everywhere. So for me, it makes it even more what you're seeing. Still being a team averaging 30 is a little bit of a concern. So I got eye-opener on that. But I also felt that at the time, they didn't want anybody to challenge a captain or the coach.

1:03:23Michael Vaughan: As in this captain and coach?

1:03:25David Lloyd: As in this captain and coach. So for me, it probably wasn't the right role for me.

1:03:30Michael Vaughan: So that was in the interview process? So what were you there to do then, just kind of offer up?

1:03:36David Lloyd: No, that wasn't in the interview process. But I just got the feeling that the captain and the coach were the ones that were picking the team, driving the team, and we didn't want anybody to come in. Where do they get their information from? I'm assuming through the performance director and the analyst.

1:03:56Steve Harmison: The umpires wear something. Umpires wear something. Everything's then logged on. Everything's logged on. Very paceful.

1:04:00David Lloyd: Yeah, so when Darren Lehman said, and this is where my yes-man comment hit a bit of headlines after that first Test match. When Darren Lehman said he hadn't seen a selector, he didn't know who the selectors were. I mean, yes, it was an off-the-cuff comment and Buff was trying to stick one in. but at the end of the day you could sit there I don't think it was No I don't think it was but you can sit there and you can have five TV screens up and all of a sudden you've got every game of county cricket that's on in front of you you've got the GoPro of the umpires on there and you've got where the ball delivered from the height it's delivered from the speed it's been delivered at where it pitches where it goes everything that it's in front of you so you can make your decisions on who's doing well and who's doing what and all of a sudden, from that point of view, you're saying average in 30.

1:04:52David Lloyd: If you're going to go and pick somebody, then I think then you go and watch them with your own act.

1:04:56Steve Harmison: You've got to watch them live. Of course you've got to watch them live. I always think... I also want to put pressure on somebody. Yeah, but also you watch players. Yeah, exactly. You watch Johnny... I always remember looking at people like, Johnny Bess, the first time I saw him bat, you can't put your finger on it, but you notice something. Joss Butler is exactly the same. I know it's obvious now. Can I bring something here?

1:05:16Michael Vaughan: So this is recent times, yeah? Yeah. We haven't won a Test match series, five match series, since 2017. Yeah. Our last, you know, you go Champions Trophy last year, we didn't win a game. Our World Cup defence in India was a poor defence of the title in 2023. Oh, yeah. So we won the T20 World Cup in Melbourne in, what was that, 22? 22, 2021. 22. So the last few years, we've actually won no trophies. We haven't won an Ashes series. We've not beaten India and we've not won an ICCFN. But you're talking about this structure. I'd argue that it's not working because the time that you're mentioning, which was eyes, send someone to watch, put them under pressure.

1:05:54Michael Vaughan: You're right, Phil. I used to panic in the 90s. When I was a young player, when I knew that, and I don't remember who were the selectors in the 90s.

1:06:02Sir Alastair Cook: Mickey Stewart. When they arrived at Henley, I knew they were there.

1:06:06Michael Vaughan: When I was 20, 21, 20, I was like, oh, jeez, the selectors here. Gooch and counting. Yeah, I wasn't ready at that time because I couldn't even cope with the selectors being there.

1:06:15David Lloyd: To sort of dissect what you're saying there, The information and stuff like that, that's fine. That's not the problem. It still comes back to the decision-making. I still think the problem that we've had in the last two years... I've been critical of this Ashes, like everybody else has. I think when we're making the decision on future and who goes forward with England in the future, I think you've got to take this Ashes section out of it a little bit because that was so bad because everything went wrong. As in, our planning was so badly wrong. They've admitted that. They've not played enough games.

1:06:49David Lloyd: You know, the Lila kill over Optus Stadium. Even coming down to the selection, Shaw Bashir's your front-line spinner with Will Jacks as your backup spinner. I mean, that there is an alarm mill. You've got three batters in the top six who average 34 or less with no spare opening batter. And even if you want to delve a little bit deeper...

1:07:09Michael Vaughan: Or a spare wicketkeeper.

1:07:09David Lloyd: Or a spare, come on to that. I mean, this rant could go a little bit longer. But no spare opening batter. and then if you look at, right, what we got if Crawley, Duckett or Pope gets injured. We've got an inexperienced Bethel. We've got a Lions trip, which has got Tommy Enns, Ben McKinney or Emilio Gare. One of them are going to have to be thrown in to a test match. So these decisions, I always defend Kesey because I have to, he's my mate and I really want to see him succeed and do well and I think he's done a lot of good stuff with the pathway. where you talked in an earlier show about the under-19s and the pathway.

1:07:49David Lloyd: That was all rebuilt after COVID. That had to be rebuilt. And that's why I'll be making a decision on McCollum solely on this one Ashes series. Because as a coach, you drive the message. As a coach, you prepare the players. As a coach, you prepare the team. You make sure there's no, you're leading, no stone unturned to make sure that everything that we potentially think is going to go right or wrong, you're ready for it as a coach. and I think Ingram got all that horribly wrong. No spare opening batter when you've got...

1:08:17Michael Vaughan: So where does that leave McCollum when he's made all those mistakes?

1:08:20David Lloyd: I think I'm reluctant, but I think he goes. Honestly, just because I'm isolating, when a lot of us are talking about them didn't beat India at home, didn't beat India at home, Australia at home are away. I'm not that bothered about that a little bit. I'm bothered about this one Ashes series I mean, and then somebody who else, I've not really spoken to him too much about it because I work in the media and I do say stupid things at times and I don't like having the information because if I've got it, I shout it even harder. But whoever has got Mark Wood from February to November wants sacked. February gets injured.

1:09:06David Lloyd: He's nearly fit, apparently. Because McCollum says this. For the fifth test match against India, in July, as a fast bowler, doesn't play any of the games for Durham to see if there's any sort of siftness, soreness or anything like that, goes wherever to bowl in the middle, in Abu Dhabi or wherever he goes, plays, bowls eight overs at Lilac Hill. So whoever's decided that that is a good plan to go into the first Test match is negligent. For me, from medical department, from whoever it is that there, he's 35 years old, his career's finished. And that there is just a small sample, I think, of where this process has been going.

1:09:48David Lloyd: And I think if I want to make one person an example, it would be that. No spare opening batter, no spare weighty keeper. Jimmy Smith's having... Didn't have a fielding coach. Didn't have a fielding coach. And if I want to talk about my level of... Supposedly level of expertise. Oh, I'm on one here. Is the bowling element. Not to have a bowling coach is a disgrace. right but for then I have never had a problem with Tim Southie as bowling coach I think it was a good choice but for him to leave and to go and sit on a bench in Abu Dhabi and not sit on a bench in in the Ashes

1:10:27Michael Vaughan: that David Saker came in at the last last minute

1:10:30David Lloyd: I mean it could be David Saker I don't want to be disrespectful of David Saker here because he's a very very fine coach and good man irrelevant David Saker in this conversation. He doesn't know he's bowlers. You've got six fast bowlers there over five test matches. The most important component for me in a bowling unit is that coach who has the time, the two hours off the field when, as the game evolves, he is the one that you come in and if you've got a great relationship with you, he's the one that tells you to get your finger out of your arse. Tells you that you're doing well. Tells you that the plan might need to change as Travis Head is getting into his 20s, his 30s and 40s.

1:11:08David Lloyd: You might have to be tighter, you might have to go a bit wider. All these things have to come and that's a relationship. And if you've not got a relationship with your bowling coach, waste of time. And England bowlers were underprepared. I mean, some of them hadn't even bowled competitively since the end of the summer.

1:11:23Michael Vaughan: Who do you think made all those decisions?

1:11:26David Lloyd: It's got to come down to the... It doesn't matter who made the decision. If it was a football, who would it be? Who gets sacked? Manager. Oh, the manager, yeah. This is why I'm reluctant. And I say this because I think Brendan McCollum's done more positive things for English cricket than negative things. I think this ride over the last three and a half years has been a brilliant ride. I think I like Brendan McCollum and I really wanted to see him succeed and I want to see him continue. Part of me wants to see the end of the film because part of me thinks the end of the film will be positive. Part of me thinks that in 2027 we win the Ashes here.

1:12:04David Lloyd: But this is why I'm saying, if you detach everything from what happened from leaving England to leaving Sydney, and it was so bad, then for me that comes down to the man that's in charge. Somebody's got to be made accountable. If you don't make people accountable, it's a free-for-all. And that, unfortunately, and I hate saying it, because I like Brendan, I think Brendan McCormick, great player, great person. He's closer to you than anybody else.

1:12:31Michael Vaughan: It's a good show with you.

1:12:32David Lloyd: I'm not personal. No, it's not a personal crusader getting Brendan. I really would like to see him see the end of his film. But unfortunately, I think because of what happened in Australia, somebody has to carry the can. And I think that stares at the coach's door.

1:12:46Steve Harmison: I quite like you off your long run, homie.

1:12:48Phil Tufnell: Do you like that? Yeah, very good. Is there not an argument to say, look, it's gone horribly wrong, deep breath, you put it right, you've got a chance to put it right?

1:12:59Michael Vaughan: I think that was before Australia. I think if you go back to 23 where they made a lot of mistakes. So that Ashley series for me was like a free hit for them. But they screwed up in those first two games. I haven't seen enough in the times since then to now that they've learnt. And this was the time that you thought, oh, God. The thing about this Ashley series for me, it wasn't hindsight. Because everyone had said the preparation doesn't look right. Your selection looks a bit... Give them all that. So my question to you was, of all the England coaches that have been in the last 25 years and directors of cricket, generally at the end of a cycle, which is home and away Ashes series, you go, right, it was always going to be judgment time this winter.

1:13:41Michael Vaughan: And judgment time, they failed. You're right in saying that you could give him a chance, but why does he earn the right that other people haven't earned the right in the past?

1:13:51David Lloyd: If Peter Moores was coach, what would be the outcome? If Chris Silverwood was coach, what would be the outcome?

1:13:58Michael Vaughan: Well, you could argue Ashley Giles lost his job at the end of the last, Ashley was a DOC. Yeah. So Rob Key's in a similar position. That's the same argument.

1:14:06David Lloyd: I think while you'd bat for Baz, and rightly so, I'd bat for Keyes and say there's a lot more going on rather than just the England cricket team. The pathway programme, Freddie involved with the Lions, the under-19, I think, would have won the World Cup if it wasn't for an absolute brilliant innings by a 15-year-old, but could have, would have, should have, doesn't mean you win the trophy. I think there's a lot of good things going. And this is why I keep saying, detach the ashes from the rest. What you're seeing is valid. I think that moment happened 2023, 2024.

1:14:41Michael Vaughan: And against Inder in the summer last year.

1:14:42Phil Tufnell: In the summer last year. The Storks interview, the Storks interview where he said we've been rumbled. We were steamrolling teams for 18 months, they've rumbled us. And we've agreed that that rumble, they would have said against Boland and Nisa, So we're going to attack you, we're going to dance down the pitch, we're going to hit you, and Kerry comes up and stands. So, hang on, what are we going to do now? So they've been rumbled.

1:15:06David Lloyd: As well, and that, and to carry on from that, what Stokes has said in being rumbled, if you carry on and see the film through, all of a sudden you're basically saying, well, nobody's accountable for negative performances and we'll continue making decisions that three players in the top six average 34.

1:15:30Steve Harmison: They basically, they've tried, when they're taken over from Joe Root, try to take the pressure off the players, let them go and play, try and take the bird, you know, the England heavy shirt, you know, hearing it in rugby, trying to make people not get burdened by the shirt. They've tried that.

1:15:42Michael Vaughan: Enjoyment.

1:15:43Steve Harmison: Enjoyment. It worked for, like always, it's a fresh new idea, it works for a period of time. That's why it was a lot of senior players, wasn't it, at the start? Loved it, a lot of senior players. However, you can't avoid, and I think everyone's now learnt, you can't avoid pressure. So you can't avoid when the pressure comes on in the Ashes 2023, the first two games, when it really hits you, they didn't respond very well. The India series, big moments, they didn't respond very well. Ashes, obviously, have gone wrong. This World Cup is really important for Brendan McCullough. Because if the pressure comes down, the Super 8s, they'd be nervy.

1:16:14Steve Harmison: I don't mind them being nervy in the group games. I think those horrible games against Nepal, Scotland, games you don't like playing in Italy. You don't like playing as a big nation because you can only lose. but the next week and a half is massive for this England structure,

1:16:27Sir Alastair Cook: not just McCullough. As you said about the big lads standing up in the Super 8s, you said Harry Brook want to see one of those match with him.

1:16:35Steve Harmison: I think if they get to the final... Does it?

1:16:38Sir Alastair Cook: So it just comes down to that, does it?

1:16:39Steve Harmison: Well, we said all along, and everyone says it, and we're now past it, we've all been through the stage where you get judged on results, right?

1:16:46Sir Alastair Cook: Well, of course.

1:16:47Steve Harmison: And we've all done it. You coach, umpire, everything goes to results, right? So we know it. So we're now sitting in the privileged position in a nice warm... away from the pressure of it. But we said this preparation will be judged on results. This set-up is judged on results. Just like I was as a captain when we lost five mil. Just like when you were a captain and you won, you're judged on results. So unfortunately for me, not unfortunately, reality is all the other bullshit... Nature of the beast. Nature of the beast. So we're going to see this set-up, if it doesn't, in my opinion, doesn't get through the next stages of this T20 World Cup when they've been poor in White World cricket, this is...

1:17:21Sir Alastair Cook: Where have they got to get to? whether they've got to get final.

1:17:23Steve Harmison: I mean, I think at least semi-final. And if you're lost by two runs in the semi-final, do you know what I mean? It's really close. It's a toss-up point.

1:17:30Michael Vaughan: Yeah, you've lost. No, I think they've got to get to the final. They have to. The last question, Steve, to finish the show, community great. It's come from Rob in Kent.

1:17:41Michael Vaughan: Baz McCullum's gone. Who replaces him? Who replaces him?

1:17:46David Lloyd: I don't know. I really don't know. because it's where the feelers want to take the whole... I think you take the whole group as in what sort of brand of cricket you want. Brendan had an identity. He had a way of playing. So it's where you want that way of playing to go with the style of coach you want to come in. I don't think this team could play for Andy Flour in the same way. You know what I mean?

1:18:14Phil Tufnell: Do you know what I'm trying to say? No, no, exactly.

1:18:16David Lloyd: Andy Flintoff. I don't think he would do it. I don't think he would do it. I think if...

1:18:23Steve Harmison: Do you think it needs to be that massive personality?

1:18:26David Lloyd: I reckon he would do it.

1:18:27Steve Harmison: Do you think you need a massive personality?

1:18:29Michael Vaughan: No. I was talking about New Zealand, South Africa, you don't know who their coaches are. Andrew McDonald's not a massive name.

1:18:36David Lloyd: I think at the end of this World Cup, at the end of this World Cup, if England didn't make a decision, I would encourage them to buy themselves some time because, like you said, with Andrew McDonald, you've got Triscothic, you've got Flintoff in the system. They could get you through till the end of September and then it buys you some thinking time. It buys you who is going to come out of the... Are we going for an interim?

1:19:03Steve Harmison: No. Michael Carrick. We're going Carrick.

1:19:06David Lloyd: Carrick, yeah. Caretaker.

1:19:07Steve Harmison: I think it depends on Stokesy a little bit because you've got stage now, you've got such a big character as a captain that that coach needs to be able to sit under Stokes. If Stokes has got that mentality to go and say, I'm doing the next 18 months, you need a coach, not a big-name coach, someone sits up... I'll throw a name in.

1:19:26Michael Vaughan: I'll throw a seed. I'll throw all team names in. I'd go... I wouldn't be against someone like Tom Moody coming for a period.

1:19:34Steve Harmison: He's just done... He's signing on those big leagues. Yeah, but ECB have got money.

1:19:38Michael Vaughan: They're paying Bas McCullum a huge amount of money. Tom Moody, just for a couple of years. I don't think something like Justin Langer would work.

1:19:46Phil Tufnell: Simon Katic.

1:19:47Michael Vaughan: There's all sorts of names. Andy Flower, you've mentioned, would be an interesting... Tom Moody, the reason why I say he's been in our system with the Invincibles, he knows a lot of our players. He's actually got teams winning over the last two or three years in whiteboard cricket. He knows redboard cricket. But I would have him with younger English coaches next to him. I think it's very, very important that we start producing some of our... But if you look at Andrew Flintoff...

1:20:09Phil Tufnell: That's a problem with 100.

1:20:10Michael Vaughan: Andrew Flintoff has found life.

1:20:11Phil Tufnell: Yeah, absolutely. Andrew Fintoff has done life. He's stepped away from cricket, done all sorts of things and come back to what he does. And he's with the Lions.

1:20:21Steve Harmison: Have you got enough coaching experience?

1:20:23Phil Tufnell: I think he'll be fine. Yeah, I think he'll be absolutely fine because he's got life experience.

1:20:28David Lloyd: The thing that Andrew is, he's got this larger-than-life character who everybody thinks is... No, he's not. But I tell you what, he is obsessed by cricket. He has got a great cricket brand. he understands the game like more than anybody else Andrew's a quiet and I love the fact that he's with the Lions because what he was largely down to the fact that you kept picking him from a young age he was a teenage superstar that went was destined to play for England from the age of 15 and then into the air tours the National Academies and went through that way so he understands exactly what these young players are going through.

1:21:11David Lloyd: They're getting coached at their counties more often than not. So you're building an environment and I think the environment that I believe that McCollum probably built towards the end was... Have we seen him off

1:21:24Michael Vaughan: or is that it? Him off.

1:21:25David Lloyd: McCollum's gone. You ask who's next. You ask who's next. Is Andrew... Would Andrew... Andrew would have a... I think Andrew would be a very, very good coach. Does he want to be the coach? That would be my issue.

1:21:38Michael Vaughan: If it came to in the next two weeks England get kicked out, they don't win another game. It could happen. Absolutely. They're up against some good teams. McCullum has to go. I completely would go, just give it Freddie for the end of the summer.

1:21:50David Lloyd: I will go Freddie. Let's go Freddie.

1:21:52Michael Vaughan: You see us out and we'll see how it works out. You don't need to rush. There's no mate, and I'm not disrespecting you. Andrew might say you're either giving it me or you're not.

1:22:00Phil Tufnell: Andrew might just say you're either giving it me or you're not.

1:22:04Michael Vaughan: Well, he might do. He's under contract till January 27 with the ECB. Oh, good lad.

1:22:09David Lloyd: I think I'd be the other way and go, right, I'm going to put my stamp on it and I've only got it till September. So it either works for me or I'm going to get to September and go, no, I'm not. You might not enjoy it. It might not for me. It might be for me. I might not enjoy it.

1:22:23Michael Vaughan: Anyway. Anyway. Let's finish with a bit of fruit. Brilliant, Steve. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was excellent. Yeah, I like that.

1:22:53Michael Vaughan: Thanks for listening and thanks to our partners, Betfair. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and you won't miss an episode. And if you want to support the show, please leave us a five-star review and help others find it too. See you next time.