Test Match Special - Project Ashes Ep 2: When it all goes wrong

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

For the last 12 months, Jonathan Agnew has been given exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the England men’s cricket team’s planning to win back the Ashes. Throughout the year, Aggers has spoken to key players, including Joe Root, Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson and many more, but also those names who are less familiar, but still play crucial roles – the tour planners, the nutritionists, the fitness teams.In Episode One, we looked at England’s meticulous planning. But, as we’ve seen over the past twelve months, things don’t always go to plan. Injuries to key players, an entire team having to self-isolate, and a bowler whose social media past comes to light during his Test debut… it’s been another bumpy ride for English cricket.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. To embrace the impossible requires a vehicle that pushes what's possible. Defender 110 boasts a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms, a weighting depth of 900 millimeters and a roof load up to 300 kilograms. Learn more at landrover.ca. The Ashes is the ultimate prize in English cricket. And Lakers take no all day. All ten.

Kasparovic goes back and Parry's one as he caught down the legside. There's an appeal for it catches out. England of one. England of won by two runs. That comes both of them now. He bows to Alderman. He bows to Alderman. England have only won once in Australia in the last 34 years.

Eight series, won victory. Anderson is out. Mitchell Johnson takes a wicket and how fitting it should be. That it's Mitchell Johnson that takes the wicket that wins Australia. The Ashes. This will be my ninth Ashes tour for the BBC, but I've never really found out just what goes on behind the scenes to prepare a team for the ultimate test

and how much planning and preparation it takes. So, over the last year, I've been speaking to the people who are in charge of England's attempts to win down under. We need to make sure that work goes in a couple of years ahead of being out in Australia. Rudy came up to me and said, you fit, you're ready to go and obviously the answer was yes, and he goes, well, congratulations. well congratulations you're playing. We're just trying to make sure that when we get off the play in Australia

that the lads are leaner, faster, memorably fit than ever before. In the last episode of Project Ashes, we looked at the meticulous long-term planning into a tour of Australia. However, as always with these things, you should also prepare for the unexpected. Given the size of the spread within the group, the only thing to do was to isolate the whole group and move forward with a completely different squad. I want to make it clear that I'm not racist and I'm not sexist.

This is Project Ashes. It's mid-February. Britain's in the middle of another lockdown. In India, England's cricketers have won the first test of the series, but the Delta Blow ahead of the second test. Joffra Archer will miss the second test against India in Chennai after having an injection in his right elbow. More for my correspondent, Jonathan Agnew.

While it's bad news for England, it's good news for a potential replacement, Olly Stone. So I just heard the news, Joffre is out of the second test. Still don't know if I'm playing, but yeah, there's obviously a chance I could play my first test match in 18 months. Obviously something I'm very excited about. Been training, I've been training, I, the body feels good, feels ready. And yeah, I just hope I get the nod and I can take my, take my chance. chance and put a good performance in to help the boys get over the line. But, yeah, still not sure what's going on, but hopefully find out very soon.

Stone, who agreed to record an audio diary for us for this programme, gets the nod, and impressed with the early wicket of Shubman Gill. I love watching Stone Bowler's. It's got one of those really easy, fast bowler's actions, effortless, and everything seems right. And looking at his action, it's hard to see why he gets injured so often, because everything's in the right place. That evening, as he got back to his hotel room, he was in reflective mood. Just came back from dinner, nice big feed to set me up ready for, to go again tomorrow, currently on my bed, recovery leggings on, just can't wait to get to sleep.

A roller coaster of emotions today, I guess. Going to the ground, still not knowing whether it was me or Wokesy that was going to play. It was a weird one, we both wanted each other to play, but at the same time we both wanted to play ourselves. So 10 minutes after getting to the ground route, he came up to me and said, you fit, you're ready to go. And obviously, the answer was yes. And he goes, well, congratulations, you're playing.

So obviously great, amazing feeling to be told that I was going to be playing and just something I'd been building up towards and just looking forward to taking that chance and hopefully help the boys perform. and to get that wicket of gill early on was, yeah, it really helped settle the nerves and body I thought was good, it went through phases. I think just after lunch started to cramp up. I had to get some fuel on board again, energy gels every half an hour, which is something I've not been used to.

And then, yeah, the nervousness around if Rudy chucked me the ball, I was worried that my calves were going to cramp and I wasn't going to be able to. luckily by the time I got the ball chucked to me that the food and that had kicked in and the pickle juice that I'd been given that's meant to help cramp it is as disgusting as it sounds very sharp and yeah just not very pleasant

the things you have to do to stay out there and keep ticking over is the kind of bowl or a bouncy pitch I wouldn't have liked face it no you and me both tough because he's sort of like bowl straight at you it's slightly coming in at you as well It's direct. There's nowhere to run.

No, that's right. England may have lost a second test, but Stone looked a good long-term prospect, particularly with the ashes in mind. The depth that England have with their fastballers, if everyone's fit for the ashes. I think that's why it is so exciting, because you remember the last time England went to Australia, Mark Wood was unavailable. He had Jimmy, he had Stuart Broad, but there was no one who could really threaten, like a Joffre Archer or an Olly Stone or a Mark Wood.

So that's why I think he is really exciting. from an England point of view. It's a really big opportunity for Ollie Stone this year to get in there, to prove that he can be fit and get on that plane at the end of it all to Australia because that would be a wonderful attack. And if Inga can go with those three to Australia and you've got Anderson Broad,

you've got the backup, you've got Stokes, you've got Wokes, that's a proper attack to take to Australia but those two wooden stone have just got to show they can do it. So when he was told he wasn't playing in the next test, it wasn't easy to take obviously really really gutted enjoyed the last one in Chennai

so much and thought that my performance on the field might get me in while I was hoping it would get me into that at least the squad for the for the third test unfortunately with

with Joffa and already available that that's not happened and yeah there were some there were some nice words said at the same time still makes it hard to take the fact they were happy with how I kept running in the last test and my speeds didn't drop. They were very impressed with my accuracy.

So, yeah, it makes it, I think that makes it a little bit harder to take the fact I'm not involved. Fingers crossed, it won't be my only international cricket I play this year and I can have a big impact going forward to help the boys win more series. I caught up with him at the end of the tour. Ollie, lovely to see you, and thanks to join us. I suppose the first thing you can do is find out how you found India. I mean, was it the sort of tour that you were expecting? How did it go for you?

Yeah, I'd like to have played more. But no, I've heard how tough it can be out there. And obviously, the way the first test went, you're probably thinking, oh, it might not be as tough as it has been in previous years. but then obviously we saw after that first test how different the conditions could be and how testing they were and obviously we didn't come out on the right side of them

and it was a very big learning curve and even just the one test I played you realise how different you have to be away from home in terms of to get the results. Was there any subplot to all of this going on? The background was the talk about Australia at all on sort of down times or even actually proper preparation times. Did you feel that as a member of the squad

that the Ashes is kind of there in the background as far as England are concerned for this year? I guess that's the main sort of focus or the end goal for this block of test cricket is that is the Ashes next winter and there was always in team talks and stuff how although we were there in there in India that situations that we come up against in these can obviously not maybe as spin

dominant, but times we're on the back foot in some of those test matches that when we went to Australia, that we can relate to them. And it's not a new scenario that we haven't been involved in. So there was a little bit of chat around, obviously, with what's to come. But there was, yeah, it was obviously hard trying not to take away from where we were. and what we needed to do in India. I mean, presumably it was on your mind in India, isn't it? I mean, what a chance to impress on and off the field

because, you know, touring is all about being part of that squad, isn't even if you're not playing? But just to kind of, you know, show, hey, I'm up for the ashes, you know, I want to be part of this. Exactly. And I guess for me, it was probably a little bit different in terms of I've been in and around it and then unfortunately missed out due to injury or had to pull out of the Ashes squad in the summer or in the English summer. So, yeah, for me, there was probably a little bit of a side motive in terms of wanting to show people that I can get out there and do it and that the injuries hopefully touch wood and

are behind me and I've got for a winter of cricket now. The injuries, it sounds like they were on your mind a bit. I mean, it sounds like you sort of subconsciously, it's there and you just got to get it out of your mind and just feel totally happy running in and bowling and free of all those concerns. Do you think you've got there? Yeah, I think so. I worked a lot on trying to forget about them and obviously thinking about the amount of cricket I've missed due to them, especially over the last sort of three years. I've had quite a little or quite a big layoff at times with certain injuries. So yeah, I worked a lot away from cricket, A, trying to keep

myself occupied and be keeping myself like busy and not necessarily cricket is the be all and end all of of everything which maybe in in the past I've probably I've probably done that so to have time away from cricket and worked a little I've actually done a little bit of sort of like hypnotherapy stuff to try and help me relax and forget about stuff that's happened that that seemed to have quite a yeah big impact it's going to happen that you're going to pick up niggles and little injuries here and there but hopefully i can minimize the severity of them and and like i say rather than be out for months i'm out for maybe a few weeks i'm interested to hear about the hypnotherapy and uh an injury so how did how did you do that and how do you think

it's helped yeah so it's it wasn't something i ever thought i'd like to have a go at but after i was like yeah i see how see how it can help and had a had a chat with him and how I said on the field sometimes especially whiteball cricket when the pace is so fast like before I knew it I'd bowled the over and not thought about what I was doing in terms of what delivery I'd get hit for six so then I'd run in and I'd go right I need to bowl this quicker like let let them have it next thing you know that's that's gone over the ropes as well and I'm like before I know it the over's gone I've gone for 24 or whatever and I was like you haven't got long but but just trying to find those five seconds at the end of your mark

that you can just relax and take a deep breath and just actually evaluate the situation rather than just running and trying to bowl it 100 miles an hour every ball. I worked a lot on being able to just take note at the end of my run-up about what delivery I want to bowl. It sounds so silly, but when you're actually in the moment, you don't think about it. and then obviously with injuries and stuff I I guess you do have a little bit of a doubt at

times whether you think your body can cope with it so it was more just trying to stop sweating about the small stuff really as they say like little things of when you're obviously when you're injured as well you have so much time on your hands that you think about everything you and then before I knew it I was worrying about silly little things like when you come in back from injury, oh, something else ached. And I was like, oh, no, not, surely not again. Like, and then before you know, you got yourself in like a horrible cycle of, is this serious, is it not? And it just allowed me to basically try and flip the negatives into positives. And when I was having those negative thoughts that I wasn't having them for two or three days,

I was having them for maybe two or three hours. How exciting it must be. I mean, really, to be one of all of you who are kind of in this mix with the thought of going and and taking on Australia in Australia, the ashes needing to be to be won back again. I mean, it must be, I think it'd be in my mind, not all the time, but it'd be around there most of the time, incredibly exciting. Yeah, I have to say, it's a definite, not that you need something like that to keep you going, but every time you maybe have a little bit of a dark day or you think, oh, I don't need to do that today. And you just think, actually, come on,

you do everything you can now. That should all help come Australia. Clearly, you're trying to get injuries out of your mind, Ollie, but you're coming back to place in Canterbury. I guess the last thing that you want is to have a niggle early on. Yeah, it would be, obviously, I have to work, having a winter a winter like I have to then like say pick up a niggle would be would be frustrating. I'd like to think all the work that I've done can put me in a good place to

to I guess not worry too much about it. I think it's natural to to worry about it. But I feel like yeah, like I say, I've learned I've learned a lot in the last sort of year to 18 months about what I need to do to minimize that time out and probably being honest in the past when you get injured you don't go into a great place and before you know it

you become lazy in terms of you're eating and you go actually I'm feeling down I'll treat myself to a Chinese or something like that which probably isn't going to help you recover as quickly as

say if you did the right thing so just yeah little things like that that in the past I've probably overlooked, I'd say, in terms of the importance, I'd like, oh, that won't matter. That isn't going to add time on some injury, but it's not necessarily adding time on. It's if you do the right things, you could maybe take a week off your injury. Tell you what, this news that we're just getting in Maddie. I think you know where this is going. And that is, unfortunately, following the second test at Edgeburston against New Zealand, Olly Stone has been diagnosed with a stress fracture of his lower back and will miss the rest of

the summer through injury, which is a real disappointment. Stone required major back surgery. And I checked it again with him the day before his operation. It's very frustrating. It's such a big summer and a big winter that's coming up. It was some tough news to take. The way I keep looking at it, it's part and parcel with the job I do. But yeah, like I say, it doesn't make it any easier.

The dreaded MRI came back and I think it was about 70% through that vertebrae. So it could have been worse. It could have been fully. gone and it would have been longer out. But, yeah, obviously, whether it's 20% gone or 70% gone, it's still the same, it's still the same timeframe. But thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It's funny.

I mean, the last time we spoke, all that optimism and, you know, it started the summer so well, that's, again, so frustrating. It was going to be, well, not going to be your year necessarily, but it was a year in which you really wanted to sort of, you know, nail this injury business and, you know, be in the ashes and so on. all those hopes. It must be absolutely dreadful feeling as you are now about to go and have this

operation. It is. I think also that makes, not makes it worse, but the last couple of times it's happened, I've got to where I wanted to get to. I finally had my opportunity and not let

myself down with that opportunity and then it gets taken away like from no fault of my own. yeah it has been it has been hard to take and something that like being honest that I've had to properly think hard about whether whether I want to try and get back out there and do it again because mentally it yeah it does it does test you also this time I felt like I've done everything I can off the field like diet nutrition even just getting fitter and

stronger, which maybe in the past, I thought, might have been a factor to why it was happening, but I've done all that, and it still happens. It was, yeah, it was a, it was a tough, it was some tough news to take. What options are they given, Yorley? I mean, yeah, we know you're going under the knife, as it were, but I mean, were there other options that were available to you? There was. There was an option of the white ball cricket, just playing whiteball cricket to start with and to see whether a prolonged period of controlled, say, over, as you'd only bowl maximum of 10 if you were playing 50 over, whether playing a year or two of that would strengthen my bones to then allow me to play test cricket. I instantly said, I know I want to play

test cricket. I love four day in test cricket. And so for me, that was never an option. and also I said what happens if in two years time I try and play test cricket and it happens again, I'm only going to be back in this situation. So to take that route with a not an definite answer, yeah, it was probably a no-go for me. And then the other option was to basically inject myself with like a growth hormone that basically helps speed up bone healing and should make that area like stronger. But then my worry to that was, it's never been that my stress fracture hasn't healed in the past. It's once I come back to playing cricket that that bit of bone can't take the stress. And I spoke to a few people

who had taken that route before surgery and they said it didn't work for them. So having this titanium screw basically should mean that that shouldn't happen again because the way the stress fracture goes across, they put the screw the other way to basically, just compress where that fracture line would be so hopefully yeah hopefully that shouldn't that means it shouldn't happen again and and i've spoke to a couple of people who have had it and they've said it's the best thing that they've ever had done so at the end of the day i want to play test cricket if after this i don't know for some reason it means i can't play test cricket then for me i know I've given myself the best possible chance of doing everything I can to play test cricket

and if it means I can't, then it would sit right with me if I had to call it a day in the longer format that I know I've done everything I could. I think if I didn't do it and called it a day, then I'd always be going, what if I'd have done that? It's a brutal reminder of just how a setback long-term injury can be. But at least for England, they had two of those high-paced bowlers left until just a few weeks later. The England and Wales cricket ball can confirm that the fast bowler Joffra Archer underwent further scans on his injured right elbow last week. The scans revealed that he has suffered a recurrence of a stress fracture of his right elbow

and in response he's been ruled out for the rest of the year. He'll miss the test series against India, the T20 World Cup and the Ashes. And it goes on. He's going to spend time on an extended break from cricket But injuries aren't the only thing that can go wrong for an England team. Let's go back to the first test of the summer, New Zealand at Lords, and a debutant is impressing. And he's born! First international wicket for Ollie Robinson.

What a moment for him. He punches the air and the England players gather around him. But as Robinson made headlines on the pitch, his past is causing bigger waves off it. Around lunchtime, social media posts from when Robinson was much younger, resurfaced online. They were, frankly, racist, sexist, and much more. As Robinson kept toiling away on the pitch,

Taylor struck on the pad by Robinson, given. Arms and off for Robinson. He snaffled another. It felt like all of lords knew that these things were out there, apart from Robinson himself, who was told what was going on when he came off the pitch, addressing the media at the close of play. On the biggest day of my career so far, I'm embarrassed by the racist and sexist tweets that

I posted over eight years ago, which of today become public. I want to make it clear that I'm not racist and I'm not sexist. I deeply regret my actions and I'm ashamed of making such remarks. I remember speaking to an angry Joe Root at the end of the game. Yeah, it's not acceptable within our game. Ollie's made a huge mistake. He knows that. He fronted up to the dressing room and to the rest of the world straight away after day one.

he's very remorseful and I think it's a lesson for everyone in the game. More has to be done, more, you know, that continued education and learning about how we can, how to behave in society and within our sport needs to carry forward. We've started doing a lot of good work in and around the cricket as a team and we'll continue to do that. We want to make the game as inclusive and as diverse as we possibly can and we'll continue to keep looking at finding ways to make that possible.

Thank you, Joe. Stuart Broad sat next to Robinson in the change. changing room for that match. It was a very stressful time for him naturally. He found out about the issues probably eight hours after everyone else after the rest of the world and he was devastated. He was

gutted and it was a really difficult position for everyone involved. He was very regretful about what had happened but you're right if there's something that is a positive that could come out of it is how we managed to deal with those sort of

negatives that were around the game and around him and be able to put them aside to perform in the game and that is international cricket isn't it? That is top flight sport so I think he's you know he was devastated by everything that happened to have your test

debut completely overridden by things that had happened sort of 10 years previous not that I'm condone it not that I'm saying what he did wasn't terribly wrong but he has he is very regretful of what happened and he's sort of dealt with it, the ECB have dealt with it, he's dealt with it and I hope we can all move on from it now.

England thought they'd unearthed a gem in Robinson and they have, someone who will prove very handy in Australian conditions. But it was just another reminder that sometimes the best made plans still go wrong. It's sliding down the leg side. The rain's coming a little bit heavier, I fancy. Oh, come on.

And you can hear David Milne saying, yep, we're going off. It's early July, a damp affair at Bristol, is the only thing that stops England from taking a clean sweep in the white ball matches against Sri Lanka. The players slowly trudge off the pitch. England are preparing to take on Pakistan. Breaking news regarding the England cricket team, Agas. Indeed, and it's actually very appropriate to what you're talking about

because following PCR tests administered yesterday, the ECB can confirm that seven members, that's three players and four of the management team, of the England One Day International Party have tested positive for COVID-19. Therefore, not only they, of course, are ineligible, but the rest of the players, the rest of the team and the party now have to self-isolate for 10 days as of July the 4th. That's complicated because there's another one-day international series

against Pakistan starting on Thursday. So basically, an entire new squad has to be selected. Those games are going to go ahead. there's one-day internationals and there's T-20s against Pakistan and Ben Stokes who's only just come back to cricket himself having broken a finger

normally he would have been playing for England but he broke a finger in the IPL he's played a few games for Durham and he's just inching his way back therefore my point is not part of this party he is going to be captain of this new team the makeup of which we don't yet know and it's going to be named in the next few hours

but clearly that's a pretty chaotic situation with three of the team and Ashley Giles looked like hadn't had much sleep when I caught up with him. Pretty mad 24 hours, to be honest, since we got the news yesterday morning that we had two positive lateral flows amongst the management team. We obviously took the right precautions then to keep everyone in one place and isolate them. And I guess then we had the news last night that we feared that there had been a bigger spread amongst the group. And then, yeah,

the last 12 hours has been a bit of a blur, to be honest. Have the players been able to go home or are they isolating quarantining in one location? I don't think any have gone home yet. They're still at the team hotel, and each case needs to be treated individually and risk assessed. And I mean that from the perspective of what's going on at home as much as what's going on with them, but obviously with the aim to get them back home as quickly

and as safely as possible. We hoped, as I say, yesterday morning, that we might have had a couple of positives and we could isolate them, but given the size of the spread, within the group, the only thing to do was to isolate the whole group and move forward with a completely different squad. Mo Bobat, England's performance director, was one of those who had to help sort out an entirely

new England squad at such short notice. I don't think I'll ever forget that 24 or 48 hours. You know, we, I think we found out on Monday that there was the potential, Monday morning, I think we found out there was a potential for some positive cases. So you try through the day to do a bit of what if planning in your own. head and think about how bad would this scenario get? And then I remember getting a text message at about 8 o'clock from Ashley Giles saying, we need to get on a call at 9. And basically, we found out that there were a significant number of positive cases to the point that we couldn't feasibly

demonstrate that it hadn't been a close contact across the whole group. So at 9 o'clock, we're on a call and I'll never forget the tone of that call. We had the medics on there. We had Ash, myself, and others, Chris as well. And we were literally talking through the scenario where, you know, you're doing one or two things. You're either calling the game off because you can't field a team or you're trying to take on the impossible, which is turning around a team or selecting a team, turning around all the mayor of the operations, communicating it, getting players there, announcing it

and doing that in a short space of time where people could train. And we all just look to each other on the call and think, well, let's give it a go. You know, and we literally, myself, Ash, Chris Silverwood, James Taylor, you know, we've got on a call immediately to work through selection, used a lot of our data and analytics to support that because we had to, luckily, we prepared well for these sorts of things and we were able to pick well. But even through that, what we typically do is we spend a lot of time trying to develop our relationships with the counties. So normally we have quite strong communication with counties around selection. So I was communicating with county directors of cricket literally

through the night and they were brilliant at getting back to me and not ignoring my many messages because, you know, in some cases we had to work out exactly where players were at. So we did all of that through the night to a point where come the morning, I had confirmed selection with the counties. Chris had confirmed selection with all the players and we were ready to announce at about nine o'clock. We literally, I think I went to bed at two or three and back up for about, you know, seven o'clock to crack on with the comm. So it was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy, but incredibly proud of that. It's one of my fondest memories actually perverse the summer because to turn that around and we kind of said to herself, look, wouldn't it be brilliant if we were

competitive and actually to win the series as well was remarkable. Ben Stokes has brought in as captain and amazingly England won the three-match series under Stokes. You're bowls and this is a very easy single to finish things off. They didn't even bring the field in. Pakistan more than happy to let Crawley stroke it through the offside and a comprehensive England victory here at Sophia Gardens Cardiff. It might be England's second string but they performed like the first string today. Very comfortable victory. England against all the odds, really. I mean, such a sort of chaotic build-up to this game.

Not for the first time, Stokes had come to England's rescue, but there was trouble ahead. England all-rounder Ben Stokes is to have an indefinite break from all forms of cricket. That's with immediate effect. More from our reporter Nikeshugani. The ECB says he will prioritise his mental health and rest his left index finger,

which hasn't fully healed after injury. England have a busy... It was a huge blow. For England's performance on the pitch, for their leadership off the pitch, but also on a very personal level. As long as I've known Ben, he puts everyone else first. And I think now is an opportunity for him to put himself first. And he has mine's full support and that.

He has a whole team's full support on that. And I just hope everyone respects that and understands that. And he can get himself back to being Ben Stokes again. and you know that's that's all anyone wants really that's all we all want I just you know more than anything want my friend to be okay and take that this is an opportunity for him to to be with his family and give himself like the opportunity to to feel like the best version of Ben Stokes because we know from a cricketing point of view how how good that is and you know from a personal point of view he's one of the the greatest bloats I've ever played cricket with so um you know

hopefully he can get back to being himself again. Stokes missed out on the last Ashes' tour after he was banned for his part in a brawl outside a Bristol nightclub. He was out of the India series and possibly another tour down under. It was clear the pressure of the calendar and the bio-bubbles were taking their toll. Here's Jimmy Anderson. You know, it just shows, you know, this sort of thing can affect anyone. Everyone looks at Ben and thinks he's a really strong character, really, you know.

Well, he is. Well, he is. He is. He is, yeah. The biggest positive for me is that he feels comfortable enough and happy enough to be able to talk about it. Because, you know, in years gone by, certainly when I start playing cricket, especially male athletes, wouldn't maybe feel as comfortable talking about stuff like this. But it's great that he's opened up about it.

He can now get the help he needs and hopefully he can come back and, you know, whenever it might be and help us win games again. Yeah. And as players, I mean, are you talking to him? you contacted him or were you just leaving him leaving him be? I think everyone's either sending him messages. Joe's very close to him so I think he's been speaking to him a bit

but I think Joe spoke brilliantly about him yesterday and I thought that he really got the sort of feeling of the group we just want Ben to be alright and that's the main thing to come out of all this. It was part of England's grand plan to have their players arrive in Australia with a large amount of cricket under their belts but for two players who could prove crucial down under

Jack Leach and Chris Wokes, they'd play just one test between them in the entire summer. Here's Chris Wokes. De Hending to 2021, I was, like you say, quite excited about what was ahead. And unfortunately, just with a few different things, it didn't quite go probably as I'd liked it to, really.

It was always a stop-start, really. And unfortunately, it wasn't being able to, I didn't capitalise on what such a good year I'd had in 2020, really. Yeah, I mean, it started off. When you close contact at Moine for a start, wasn't that how it all started? That's right. I shared a taxi down to, or a car, down to Heathrow for the Sri Lanka tour with Mowing. And obviously at the time, we didn't realize he was COVID positive.

And I was then deemed a close contact and had to do 10 days isolation on arrival in Sri Lanka. So therefore missed the first test. And subsequently, actually, missed the second one because I hadn't had enough cricket before that one had started either. Yeah. I guess that's the problem with these tours. I mean, you just, you don't get a chance to prove your fitness between tests in a way. Yeah, it's right. And I think, you know, more so now, COVID's obviously threw up a lot of different sort of things and obstacles that we have to get over and get through on tours.

And I think time away from home and obviously time on tours has kind of tried to, it's kind of kept to a bare minimum if they possibly can. And as you said, therefore, there wasn't enough time to get enough cricket into myself. and so your planning or the planning to be done for you for Sri Lanka and India clearly kind of gets ripped up but but there was quite a rigid sort of rest and rotation policy program in place then wasn't there so how did that affect you the fact that your first two tests sort of disappeared yeah so basically obviously I missed the first two tests in Sri Lanka albeit I was there then I went on to to India to be a part of that series and and actually just wasn't selected for the first three tests of that of that series and then my rest was going to be test four and the one day series that followed which unfortunately the way it worked was that I obviously didn't play in the test series and I would have played in the ODI series but that was when I was so-called rested type

thing and you know that was something which kind of just had to take on on the chin really because you know you can't spend that sort of time away in that in that current climate you know away from a young family and, you know, I needed to get back home at that point. So although it wasn't ideal in terms of playing cricket, you know, it was what I needed to do in terms of getting home and seeing my family. Yeah, so, I mean, you weren't frustrated about it. I mean, obviously, you know, we're cricketers, you know, you want to play cricket, you want to play as much as you can. I think what frustrated me a little bit was the fact that I felt like I'd had such a good year in 2020 to then, obviously, not play any test during that period or, you know, the six

months after it was a little bit frustrating really. That was the main side I think that which which hurt a little bit. For Mo Bobat, the man who's in charge of England's long-term planning, Wokes and Leach had a less than ideal 2021. You have a plan for how you might use some of your resources, playing resources, but there's always stuff that happens. So a great example would be you know, well, Chris Wokes getting out to Sri Lanka and being a close contact for Moe in and having to isolate if you remember for a period. That was totally unexpected and that derailed things. And that meant that the plan that we wanted to have for him

wasn't the plan that we were executing. You know, similarly with the situation in the summer with Jack, balance in the team became quite difficult without an all-rounder in the team. And that made it quite difficult for us to play a frontline spinner in one or two of the games. That's just the reality of it. So as much as you plan as much, you know, as best as you can, typically something happens that puts that that plan under pressure. You know, we've spoken to Jack quite a lot and certainly in the last few weeks leading

into us traveling, you know, traveling out to Australia tomorrow. You know, we've had, we'll have all of the lads in at our performance center in Loughborough where we've had the tent hook and guys have been coming in there to bowl, do their fitness testing, catch up with staff. And, you know, the general take on where Jack is at right now, he's in a good place and he's excited and he's training hard and he's ready for the winter. And that's probably mirrors all of us. obviously he'll probably be looking forward to an itching to get into some game time

and get back into his groove as I'm sure all the lads are and that's why it's important that we've got those warm-up games out in Australia that we can make the most of but for him it's just trying to remind him of all the great things he did last winter which won't be too far away in his mind but also make sure that he's really clear or all of the lads are really clear on their role that they're going to fulfil when they get out there you know and in Chris's case him in finding his way back into the T20 team and doing really well and banking the cricket and the intensity of cricket now will be really good. So the challenge for him

now shifts is how how do we get him from T20 intensity and volume up to test intensity and volume? Whereas if he wasn't at the T20 World Cup, he'd be coming out with us and we'd be saying okay, we can get the volume into him but match intensity might not be there. So you're always trying to manipulate things like

intensity volume when you're designing programs for bowlers and that's physically but also from a skills perspective. So yeah, look, there might be things that we could have done differently, but that's part of the challenge of our decision-making. We've heard from many of the players and coaches on their Ashes' plans, but there's so much more work that goes on unseen behind the scenes. I've been trying to find out what happens.

I've pretty much got responsibility for keeping the players fit, making sure that the 26 contracted players are the fits players in the world, essentially. Pricket and alcohol, it's always a topic that I'm quizzed on, but let's just say at the end of a test match, I want us to celebrate our wins. You know, you'll find me in there as well. I love beer as well. It did take quite a while for Jimmy Anderson to get any sort of trust in me as a physio I must do it.

That's next time on Project Ashes. Match of the Day, Top Ten Podcast is back once again, exclusively, on BBC Sounds. It's too late for me now, Manning, yeah, it's too late at this. I was going to get some more dates on a match of the day then. Yes, myself, Alan, and the busiest man in football punditry, Micah Richards, return for Series 5. He was never going to Man City.

Maniated could never, ever have allowed Cristiano Ronaldo to have gone to Manchester City. The Match of the Day Top 10 podcast, only available on BBC Sounds.