Andy Flower

...

if Andy Flower had been up for it, you'd go Andy Flower.

I, I, I don't know.

There's, there's an argument for that.

And it honestly looked way off.

We had to win this, this, and this, and actually came a lot quicker than it, Actually, even Andy Flower and Nathan Lehman, I think we're about 18 months ahead of it because we actually play well.

If you've got one single goal, which everyone's united behind, I think we sat in that meeting as batters and the bowlers were operating on and around world-class level.

There was a line like strike rate, average, wicket.

need.

I think the help for Joe Root is also quite interesting because most of the debate that we've had This evening has been about culture and details and standards.

And I was thinking when Matt was talking and lots of things that Fleming said that Matt liked, it reminded me that Joe Root is the only England player left who played under Andy Flower.

And a lot of the things that Fleming has said could have been said by Andy Flower.

But you're right in that it hasn't really worked for England in the times that they've done it before.

First when it was Andy Flower and Ashley Giles, that, that just-

Mm

... sort of fell apart pretty quickly actually.

So you started off when...

No, with England, when Andy Flower was head coach in 2009, he reads Moneyball, actually, and that becomes a huge...

And then Nathan Lehman's the analyst, and England are kind of the first to be kind of doing this properly.

And it is really important.

I would still love Ben Stokes to be the England captain, though.

But I'd love Ben Stokes to work with a Steven Fleming or an Andy Flower.

I've, I've, I've said it many times.

Think he'd be able to?

Um, Juanta says: "Is Malcolm Marshall refusing $1 million to tour and play in apartheid South Africa the most morally upright act by a great cricketer?" Wow.

Um, I mean, Andy Flower not being able to go home for 20 years is pretty morally upright, isn't it? Was it 20 years? 25 years.

What was it? 2003.

Yeah, so almost 20 years.

Um, I would put Henry O longer than that, but you did say great player.

So [chuckles] I think Andy Flower, um, Andy Flower would be the one that instantly comes to my mind.

I'm trying to think of other players who might have done morally upright things.

So much money in that, um, Rebel, those Rebel tours, uh, by the way.

I- one story I always think of with KP is one of my first tours with England, and I actually wasn't officially in the ODI squad, but it was in India and there was T20s after.

So Andy Flower said, "Come for the ODIs and just be around and train and then you'll play in the two T20s at the end." And, um, can you remember Kochi or Kochi, however you say it? We were training there and I just thought, "Do you know what? I'm gonna ask KP if he'd mind watching me bat in the nets." Um, uh, and you know, when you're not really in the squad, you, you go at the end.

Um, so he could have quite easily been like, "No, I'm finished.

I've got something to do." He said, "Yeah, of course.