Star England batter Ben Duckett is eager to show how important playing for England is to him following a poor Ashes campaign. However, England have insisted they are ready to adapt under coach Brendon McCullum, who is still the head coach despite a 4-1 series loss in Australia as well.
Meanwhile, Duckett, who averaged 20.2 in Australia with a top score of just 42, was also spotted seemingly drunk during a controversial mid-series break in Noosa as well. However, Duckett has pulled out of the IPL to play for title-holders Nottinghamshire in the County Championship, focusing on his England place ahead of the home Test series against New Zealand and Pakistan as well.
“I wasn’t proud of how things went in Australia,” Duckett said. “Hopefully, moving forward, we’ll just see over time how much playing for England means for us. This is not why I’ve done it but pulling out of the IPL, turning down a good chunk of money and missing the opportunity to play with and against some of the best players in the world to be here playing for Notts is a step in the right direction to show how much playing cricket for England means to me personally.”
“If we were winning it probably wouldn’t have been news and nobody would have cared” – Ben Duckett on his incident
“I genuinely don’t know whether I’ll be in the England team for the first Test (against New Zealand at Lord’s on June 4), but I’ll do everything I can over the next four or five weeks to be in the best shape of my life,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Travis Head – who scored more than 600 runs in the Ashes series, including three hundreds – said the reaction to Duckett’s incident in Noosa “a bit stiff”.
“If we were winning it probably wouldn’t have been news and nobody would have cared,” said Duckett. “If it had been Travis Head in that video, people are probably loving it. We were struggling as a side and I was struggling as a player so I shouldn’t have put myself in a position like that. That goes for any human being, let alone a professional sportsman. I think it’s no secret that we can definitely tighten up on some areas… and to be honest, I’m all for it,” Ben Duckett concluded.
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