27 September 2023 , 11:07
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Freddie Flintoff helped introduce a new game to the England dressing room during the recent One-Day International series against New Zealand.
Flintoff joined up with the squad for the four-match series this month, appearing for the first time in public since his horrific crash while filming for Top Gear. The former all-rounder made a huge impression among Jos Buttler’s side, helping them warm-up and sharing his vast knowledge with the players, who won the series 3-1.
The 45-year-old was always the life and soul of the party during his playing days from 1998 to 2009 and his return to the dressing room saw him assume a similar role. England Test captain Ben Stokes says Flintoff was one of the most enthusiastic players of a South American dice game called Perudo, which is now the a favourite pastime for the team.
“We played it with Fred pretty much every night during the New Zealand series,” Stokes told The Guardian. “You can probably imagine it, two or three hours in one of the guys’ rooms, p***ing about, everyone talking a bit of s***. It’s a quality game.
“It was just class having Freddie around the guys to be honest. Everyone knows what he’s been through with his accident. It wasn’t just great for us as a team, I think it was great for him to announce himself back on the social scene as part of an England dressing room. You could see his confidence grow every day he was with us.”
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Perudo, which is also known as Liar’s Dice, is a game based on guesswork and bluffing in which players bid on how many dice are on the table under cups. With rain often interrupting cricket in September, England’s players had plenty of time to kill in the dressing room.
Flintoff, who has visible scars on his face from the 130mph crash in December, was undertaking an unpaid role in the coaching staff and stayed on to work on the series against Ireland. He is close friends with England’s managing director of cricket, Rob Key, and with batting coach Marcus Trescothick, who are both former team-mates.
Flintoff shares a joke with the team at the Oval“Having Freddie around has been superb, it really has,” said Trescothick. “Even though he hammers me more than anyone else with his banter. He’s been brilliant. A couple of times he’s spoken in the changing room and it's been like ‘wow’.
“To have him sprinkling a bit of gold-dust around the team and having the younger players working with that has been invaluable really. You can’t put a price on it. You can see the difference and I’ve seen the progression of him as a character, the way he talks and delivers messages to players has been superb.
“I think he was a little bit nervous coming into the environment. He doesn’t know many of the people so from where he was at Cardiff to where he is now, he’s grown massively. He’s back to the person you expect to be around cricket. That’s what I’ve seen for so many years and it’s been great. Hopefully we’ll see more of him in the future.”