Best of SPIN: The making of Andy Flower

First published in the May 2009 issue of SPIN magazine

Interviews with Grant Flower (brother), Henry Olonga (Zimbabwe team-mate), Ronnie Irani (Essex skipper) and Roger Newman (mid-90s Oxford University director of cricket who gave Flower his first job in coaching) by George Dobell

Grant Flower We started out together in the back garden. I’m two-and-a-half years younger and spent a fair amount of those years bowling at him. There was never much coaching, so we had to fend for ourselves. Our dad was a big influence, though. He instilled the idea that we had to work hard, though it pretty much only extended to the sports field. We were always much more orientated towards sports than school work.

Roger Newman I got to know him when he played for West Bromwich Dartmouth in the Birmingham League in the mid-’90s. He was overseas player and I was chairman of cricket. There was an incident that struck me very early on. After getting himself out for about 70 to a poor shot, he went into the dressing room, looked into the mirror for some time and then spat into it. He was so disgusted with himself.

GF Andy was training to be an accountant. It wasn’t until he after he had spent a year playing in the Birmingham League that he considered taking up cricket professionally. It was a very important time. There’s a bit of pressure on you if you’re the overseas pro; you’re expected to bat through and win games. I think it helped him mature and realise what a good player he could be. He also realised how much he enjoyed playing cricket and how many opportunities there are for professionals here.

Henry Olonga As a player, he led by example. I made my Test debut under Andy’s captaincy [in 1995]. I was only 18 and, no thanks to me, the game saw Zimbabwe win their first-ever Test, against Pakistan. Andy scored 150 in that game, as well as keeping wicket and captaining.

GF Our stand (of 239) against Pakistan – a record stand for brothers in Test cricket – is certainly the highlight of my career and I know it’s special to Andy as well. But there were times when we really struggled as a side. There was a Test against South Africa [in 2001] where Andy scored a hundred in each innings [142 and an unbeaten 199] but we still lost by nine wickets. It really doesn’t say much for the rest of us, does it?

HO His method? Hard work. There’s no magic. He’s not the most talented player in the world, but he had unbelievable levels of concentration, he was very fit and he worked harder than anyone.

Ronnie Irani I first came across Andy on England’s tour to Zimbabwe in 1996. That was the ‘we bloody murdered them’ tour. He was by far their best player and we were punished for underestimating them. We didn’t give him, or their team, enough respect and he proved us wrong.

GF England were a bit patronising towards us; particularly [coach] David Lloyd. But it did us a favour, really. We were spurred on as a group of players. It suited us to be the underdogs. Andy used that to inspire him.

RI He’s a thinking cricketer. Remember that last Test, when we should have won, but they kept bowling wide and the scores ended level? I bet that was his idea. It wasn’t against the rules at the time and it saved them the game.

RN I was director of cricket at Oxford University and asked Andy to be the coach. He was 28 by then. He had been playing Test cricket for four years but no county had come in with the offer of a contract. Andy was going to come over and play as a league pro again. But we gave him the opportunity at Oxford. Why did I pick him? Well, I thought he would know what it was like to be the underdogs. He was used to being in a team that had to punch above its weight.

GF His best innings? He scored a double-century against India in Nagpur [in 2000] when the ball was turning square. He attacked them and reversed the pressure. It was a top innings and saved the Test. As a batsman he was up there with the very best.

HO To become the No 1 rated batsman in the world is an extraordinary achievement for a guy playing in a struggling team. Those two hundreds in a Test came against a really fiery South African attack. And we still lost heavily. He was outstanding in India, too. He dominated against their spinners, on their pitches, and made himself into a superb player of spin bowling.

GF I don’t think all those hours of facing my bowling in the garden helped much. Let’s face it, it’s not as if I turn it. He just did a lot of extra work. He used to get guys to bowl at him on dry parts of the outfield so he could practise against the turning ball.

RI We – England – had no answer to his batting. He could play every sweep possible and there was nothing we could do to stop him. He was technically fantastic and an absolute rock in terms of concentration.

RN We didn’t have the strongest Oxford side. Only Mark Wagh and James Averis went on to enjoy careers in the game. But, thanks to a good team spirit, we beat Duncan Fletcher’s Glamorgan the year that they won the championship. We were set about 275 in 57 overs and people assumed we wouldn’t go for it. But Andy said, ‘We’re going for them and we’re going to get them.’ And we did. We won by five wickets. He had such authority that everyone believed him when he spoke like that.

HO As a player he just kept improving. I remember when we used to train as a team and net sessions would end and we’d all go. But he and Grant would just keep going. He set the benchmark for professionalism.

GF He was always stubborn. Incredibly stubborn. I’m sure that helped him become such a determined batsman.

RI It was Graham Gooch’s idea to bring him to Essex [in 2002] and it was an absolute inspiration. He’s as a good an overseas player as the club has ever had – up there with Allan Border, Mark Waugh and Ken McEwan. Gooch knew that Andy was a fighter and he knew he was a winner. We saw him as an all-rounder who could bat at three or four and keep wicket while James Foster was away at university.

GF He was a very tidy ’keeper. Obviously there were times when the work load of batting, captaining and keeping wicket became hard, but it was the way he liked it. He became No 1 in the world when he was doing all three. He loved to be involved in the game and he felt that watching the ball out of the bowler’s hand helped him keep his eye in. He really missed it when Tatenda Taibu took over.

RI He’s underestimated as a wicketkeeper. He was top class. Really, he was as good as anyone I played with or against, including Jack Russell. Ask Gooch; he’d agree with me: Standing back he could catch pigeons and his work standing up to my bowling was the reason I was called back into the England team [in 2002]. Without him, I’d never have got back into international cricket.

HO With England, he’ll be particularly strong on fitness and mental toughness. As those are areas that England have been quite weak, you might see quite rapid improvement. He’ll give one or two of those England players a bit of a wake-up call.

RI Lots of overseas players work very hard on their own games. Andy probably took that to a new level, but the real difference with Andy was what he did off the pitch at Essex. He was the perfect team man, always thinking about other people and helping them with their games. He threw himself into club life and his team ethic was second to none. There was no talk of him coaching before he joined us, but he went to work with the youngsters straight away. Undoubtedly the likes of Ravi Bopara, Ali Cook, James Foster owe him a hell of a lot.

RN He worked incredibly hard and hated losing. Once at Oxford, after we had been easily beaten by Nottinghamshire, someone suggested a game of football between the sides. We lost again, about 4-0, and then all went to have a shower with the thought of heading home. But Andy had other ideas: he sat everyone down to dissect the game of football. He was unhappy about the lack of effort from some of the guys. ‘It’s only a game,’ one of them said. ‘You don’t get it,’ Andy said. ‘It’s about winning. You must never, never accept losing.’ That was the mentality he took to his cricket.

RI He could adapt to any situation. If you wanted to someone to grind out a hundred to save a game, then he was your man. But if you needed someone to smash 100 in 70 balls, he could do that, too.

GF People will know where they stand with Andy. He was brought up to be honest and he’s not afraid of speaking his mind.

RN He had a game against the MCC coming up and wanted some extra practise. There was no-one else around so I bowled to him. After a while he asked me to bowl from 18 yards. Then 15. And then 10. He wanted to replicate the pace of professional bowlers. After an hour or so, I was exhausted. ‘How much more?’ I asked him. ‘Just another hour,’ he said. What other people thought of as hard work, he thought of as a warm-up.

RI He will insist the players are very fit, and quite rightly. But I don’t think he is as fanatical about that as some are suggesting. It’s winners he’ll want most, so he’ll be looking for guys with the right skills; not just guys who can run marathons or the 100 metres in 11 seconds.

GF We were always very keen to be the fittest we could be. We figured that, if we were fitter than the guys we played against, we’d have an advantage. And, later on, we thought we should set an example to our team-mates. We always tried to work a bit harder than the rest. He won’t take any excuses over poor fitness. How can there be any? There have all the time and all the support, in terms of physios and trainers, that anyone could need.

RI He’s old school. He lives, breathes and talks cricket. He was always happy to talk to the opposition at the end of a game and offer them any advice he could. The England boys will learn a lot just by talking to him.

HO The way he stood up to Robert Mugabe should demand the instant respect of every England cricketer. But then there’s his record as a player. That should demand instant respect from all England players, too. And he’s a nice guy. He’s the whole package. They’re lucky to have him.

RI He doesn’t suffer fools. He puts the mileage in and he expects others to do the same. The England squad will soon find out that he will not tolerate any slacking.

HO He wasn’t a naturally political person. He was drawn into the black armband protest [against President Mugabe, at the 2003 World Cup] by a combination of frustration and patriotism. If you’d asked him about politics only a few years previously, he would have said, ‘I’m a sportsman; all I want to do is play cricket.’ But it hurt him to see our country falling apart and our to see the demise of our sport. He watched the farm invasions and the economy collapsing and he felt he had to do something. He’s a true patriot.

GF It was a huge decision to stop playing for Zimbabwe and leave the country that we love. We talked about it a lot, but it was probably harder for him as he had a young family. Life isn’t ideal, though, and we were very lucky to be able to play county cricket.

RI He’s a streetwise coach, very good at identifying talent. He won’t just judge on playing ability; he’s a big believer in character. He’ll look them in the eye and decide whether they’re up to it under pressure.

HO Andy approached me with the idea for the black armband protest, because I was the senior black player.

GF I wanted to join in the black armband protest. I spoke to Andy and Henry about it, but they felt it would be more powerful if it was one white guy and one black guy. There were several white guys prepared to do it, but only one black guy. It took a lot of guts.

HO We informed the rest of the team on the morning of the game. Andy called a team meeting about an hour before the start. We had released a statement to a friend of ours in the media, Geoff Dean of The Times, so there was no going back. Vince Hogg, the chief executive of the Zimbabwe cricket board, implored us not to go ahead with it. He warned us that we were putting ourselves in danger. But we knew the risks. We knew we could be in danger and Andy knew it was the end of his international career.

GF He comes from an environment where you are brought up to speak your mind and keep things simple. His mental strength is one of his strongest characteristics. You can see it in the way he has pursued his career.

HO Maybe I was a bit naive. I knew there’d be some reaction, but the anger did take me a bit by surprise. I received some nasty emails and then was tipped off that the police were gunning for me. I left the country and I haven’t been back. It will be interesting if Andy has to go back to Zimbabwe as coach of England. He’s a British citizen now, so I presume he’ll be safe. But there’s radical element out there that is still mad at us.

RI He’ll know which coaches he wants. I’ve no idea who he plans in bring in, but he worked well with Darren Gough at Essex and I’d love to see them together again.

HO Ten years on, I’d like to think that all our team-mates would say ‘Good on you.’ They weren’t all supportive at the time – one has been very derogatory – but I think most of them would reflect on everything that has happened and at least understand why we did it. Our intentions were good.

GF I’m proud of him and I know he’ll give the job his best shot. But if it doesn’t work out, he’ll dust himself down and move on. He’s very strong mentally.

RN Andy is a loyal person and he was right behind Peter Moores. I imagine he thought a great deal about walking away from England, as he didn’t want to be seen from benefiting from Moores’ departure.

RI I just hope they allow him to make the important decisions. There are quite a lot of people involved with the management of the England team and I’m not sure what they all do. They’ve picked the right man in Andy; now they need to back him.

HO He has changed. He’s matured gracefully and he’s become a much more rounded man. He’s experienced a bit more than cricket and it’s made him wiser. I just hope they give him time. England have lost a lot of their best players in quite a short space of time and they need to rebuild. They couldn’t quite finish off the West Indies in a couple of games, but at least they got in a position to win. Andy will take them the extra mile to win those games.

GF I am slightly concerned about the press in England. They are relentless and there’s a bit of the tall poppy syndrome. But Andy can look after himself. He’ll be honest and most people respect that. He was a bit unsure whether he wanted the job ahead of the West Indies tour, but he enjoyed it very much and was very keen afterwards. I think he’d always have had some regret if he hadn’t accepted the job now.

RI He’s the right man for the job. If he had been allowed to have both hands on the reins over the winter, I’m sure England would have done much better. He’ll still only be as good as the cards he’s dealt, but I believe that, under Andy Flower, England can win the Ashes.

RN He has his work cut out as England coach. I hope he is given the authority to go with the responsibility. All I can say is that, when things are tough and everything looks hopeless in cricket, there’s no-one I’d want beside me more than Andy Flower.

HO Kevin Pietersen can look up to Andy as a coach. I’m not sure you could say that about Peter Moores, could you? You can imagine Pietersen asking Andy to show him how to play the sweep; he wouldn’t have done that with Moores, would he? Andy is a nice guy, a decorated cricketer and a qualified coach; what more do you want? England have got themselves a good man.