England icon Phil Tufnell took some pills to help with his fear of flying but ended up having an awful time after mixing his meds with alcohol
England cricket legend Phil Tufnell has revealed he was so out of his mind he thought he was Jesus on an Ashes flight to Oz.
Tuffers admitted he was hit for six when he ignored a warning not to booze after being given meds to cope with a fear of flying.
Phil, 59, explained: “It’s no secret that I’m not the best flyer in the world and at Heathrow in 1990 nerves were getting hold of me big time.
“Not only was this an epic flight but I’d be sharing cabin space with a load of blokes who were pretty much my childhood heroes.
“I explained this to the England physio Laurie Brown before we took off.
“’Look,’ I said, ‘I’ve been watching some of these people since I was a kid. The last thing I want is to make a fool of myself, to show any weakness. I don’t want to be hanging on to an air hostess weeping as we’re taking off and then sat there a gibbering wreck for the next 20 hours.
“’Don’t worry,’ Laurie said, and reached into his bag of tricks from where he produced a few pills, as I recall a couple of little green ones and a pink one.
“’These will do the trick,’ he told me. And then he looked me in the eye. ‘But whatever you do, don’t have a drink with them.”
In his new book Tuffers’ Ashes Heroes, he confessed that he couldn’t face the journey without a stiff drink – which sent him bonkers.
Phil said: “Laurie’s words were pitched into a sudden, and ultimately losing, battle with an overbearing urge for that classic whisky and Drambuie combination, the Rusty Nail.
“With a couple of those inside me, any nerves were left on the tarmac.
“Problem was, I’d also been transported to an entirely different mental state.
“In my head, I was no longer a promising left-arm spinner heading out to Australia, I was the baby Jesus in a nativity play.
“The newspaper I’d picked up was my blanket. My club class seat was my manger.
“And at one point, as I hallucinated wildly, when he came over to say hello, Graham Gooch was one of the wise men.
“Tour manager Peter Lush was the donkey. I only wish I could remember who was the Virgin Mary.”