Ben Duckett’s Test career appeared to be finished in 2017 but his busy 98 at Lord’s embellished a stirring comeback story
It was actually a vodka and lemonade, not that it really matters. Everyone assumes that the drink Ben Duckett tipped over James Anderson during the ill-fated 2017-18 Ashes tour – the drink that looked like ending his international career for good – was a pint of beer. To a large extent, I think, this is because Duckett basically looks like a pint drinker. You can almost see it nestled in his meaty hand: one arm resting on the wood-panelled bar, the other showing you a picture of a new sports car on his phone.
And for years this is how Duckett has existed in the imagination of the English cricketing public: as a kind of caricature, a known known, the guy with all the talent in the world but none of the common sense. The Perth incident – as well as a separate mishap in which a hungover Duckett vomited over coach Trevor Bayliss on a plane – left him persona non grata in English cricket, which feels rather quaint now we know about all the other things that were happening in English cricket at the time.
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