‘I acquired heartbreaking Ashes information in rest room on Christmas Day’
A former England bowler has recalled the painful moment he found out he’d been dropped during a rare successful Ashes tour Down Under
There’s never a good place for a player to be dropped in the midst of an Ashes tour. But spare a thought for Steve Finn, who found out he’d been axed from the England team in a toilet on Christmas Day.
It was the legendary 2010/11 tour, the last time England won a Test series on Australian soil. While Andrew Strauss’s side eventually cantered to a 3-1 victory, the series was on a knife-edge at 1-1 heading into the Boxing Day Test at the MCG.
The Aussies had some momentum after winning the third Test in Perth, while the England camp was facing some big selection decisions. One of the toughest involved Finn, who was the leading wicket-taker in the series at that point.
However, after struggling in Perth, England opted to replace Finn with Tim Bresnan, which proved to be a wise move in hindsight. However, it was devastating for the young paceman, then just 21, whose family had flown out to Melbourne to watch him play in the fourth Test.
Finn has recalled the painful moment on the For The Love of Cricket podcast with Jos Buttler and Stuart Broad, who also suffered heartbreak on that tour after returning home early because of injury.
“The lowlight [of his Ashes memories] would be being dropped on Christmas Day by Andrew Strauss in the toilet area of the MCG,” he said.
“I kind of guessed [it was coming] because I’d gone round the park in Perth. We’d got rolled by [Mitchell] Johnson twice in that Test match. I hadn’t bowled well, I knew I was up for the chop, but you still try and retain some hope that you’re going to survive and play in a Boxing Day Test.
“He [Strauss] made a beeline for me and I thought, ‘Oh s***, this actually happening.’ He said, ‘Can we have a quiet word in the toilets?’ We were stood by the hand dryers.
“He delivered the news very matter-of-factly. It wasn’t unexpected but it still hit me like a train at the time because I’d been dreaming of playing in a Boxing Day Test.”
Finn can at least say he was part of an Ashes-winning squad Down Under. Hopes that the current side could follow suit have already been crushed, with Ben Stokes’s side 3-0 down with two Tests to play. A disastrous tour has suffered a fresh setback after Jofra Archer was ruled out for the rest of the series with a side strain.
Meanwhile, their build-up to the Boxing Day Test has been beset by reports of excessive drinking on their mid-series trip to Noosa. Within hours of managing director Rob Key announcing he would be investigating the squad’s alcohol intake on the trip, footage emerged on social media appearing to show a drunk Ben Duckett in a tense exchange with members of the public.
There will be nowhere to hide at the MCG, where a festive crowd of around 90,000 are expected to dish out plenty of partisan barracking, with opener Duckett’s precarious position hardly helped by a series batting average of just 16.
