English cricket was once synonymous with drinking and several legends of the sport made their reputations even bigger off the field
The Ashes are set to begin as England’s top cricketers travel Down Under. However, hangovers are unlikely to feature when Brendon McCullum’s squad takes to the field in Perth.
Cricket was once closely associated with heavy drinking, but most elite players today wouldn’t consider touching alcohol ahead of a pivotal Test match.
Yet previous generations became legendary through tales of boozy evenings and remarkable achievements as Mirror Sport examines the cricketing icons from yesteryear who enjoyed a tipple or two.
Shane Warne
The late Shane Warne remains deeply mourned throughout the cricket world. Warne’s spinning prowess terrified batsmen during his peak years and he proved equally impressive with a pint in hand.
He once confessed to consuming “10 pints and chicken and chips” nightly throughout his playing days and occasionally battled weight issues. “I was the renegade,” he once declared.
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Warne also maintained a substantial smoking habit across his 22-year Australia career and was photographed in 1997 during The Ashes series with a cigarette in his mouth.
Merely 12 months before his death aged 52 from an unexpected heart attack, Warne reflected: “I liked loud music, I smoked, I drank, and I bowled a bit of leg spin. I don’t have any regrets.”
Freddie Flintoff
Among England’s greatest all-rounders was someone who also enjoyed his beverages. Flintoff remains celebrated for his on-field contributions for his nation, alongside his notorious celebrations following the 2005 Ashes victory.
Flintoff was at the heart of the victory parade through London and revelled in a boozy Downing Street reception. Another drunken escapade saw Flintoff take control of a pedalo following a loss to New Zealand at the ill-fated 2007 Cricket World Cup.
“I couldn’t find the oars, so I dragged this pedalo into the water,” Flintoff told Piers Morgan’s Life Stories in 2014. “The next morning I woke up, I was on my bed and, still wet and [with] sand between my toes. It was a real low point.”
Flintoff, who sustained a life-changing crash whilst filming for the BBC hit Top Gear in 2022, is now teetotal after acknowledging he put his partner through hell with his drinking.
“Looking back, I feel for the missus. She used to get the worst of me,” he wrote in his 2015 memoir. “She didn’t come out and celebrate when we won – that was with the lads – and I’d rock in at five in the morning, stinking and falling over.
“When we lost, she’d see me drowning my sorrows in the corner. And then your career is all over. You can understand why cricketers’ marriages break down. If the shoe was on the other foot, I might have just said, ‘You know what, sod this.'”
Ian Botham
‘Beefy’ is an England legend and he was equally celebrated for his capacity to handle his drink. A 1980s tour of India showcased exactly what kind of leader the former captain was.
When jetting to Mumbai from Australia, Botham knew that alcohol would be difficult to come by when England touched down, but the legendary all-rounder devised a clever solution.
“We were determined to win the game, but we were equally determined to let our hair down off the field,” he explained, as the squad had arrived from Australia, where they suffered a 3-0 series defeat.
“The lack of decent beer on the sub-continent at the time – the situation has improved considerably now – made that difficult, but we took the precaution of importing as much Aussie beer as we could cram into our hold bags on the flight.”
David Boon
Former Australia batsman Boon is at the centre of one of cricket’s most legendary drinking tales. Throughout his career, in which he amassed over 7,000 Test runs, he built a reputation for himself thanks to the amber nectar.
The story goes that during a flight from Australia to London as Boon’s squad travelled in for the 1989 Ashes, the batsman attempted to break the record for the number of beers consumed over the course of such a journey.
A benchmark of 51 cans was reportedly set by Rod Marsh and it was due to stand as the aircraft approached Heathrow. But according to team-mates, the pilot was asked to circle a few times so Boon could squeeze a few more in and he smashed the record with an incredible 52.
“I’ve got to be brutally honest here, I won’t deny it happened… We all do stupid things in our lives,” Boon admitted to the BackChat Sports Show. “You have fun, you do something and then you think ‘s*** what about the ramifications to everything else’, to your family to your children.
“It caused some crap over the years and it’s something that I regret… a lot. I can’t deny it but I do regret it. And I was stupid to be able to do that when you’re in the public eye.”
Merv Hughes
Hughes played alongside Boon and was present on the notorious flight when the record was allegedly set. In a 2002 interview with the Guardian, he was questioned about whether Boon had actually downed 47 cans.
The bowler responded: “Oh, where did you get that story from? That’s an absolute fabrication of the truth.” However, following a pause for comic effect, he then joked his teammate had actually managed even more than the widely-reported 52 figure. “It was 53 cans,” he quipped.
Hughes was equally known for his drinking during his playing days and once confessed he believed it was his responsibility to consume alcohol, given the sponsors backing some of Australia’s tours.
He added: “Have a think about it, on both the ’89 and ’93 tours of England we were sponsored by [Australian beer brand] XXXX. If you don’t get right behind the sponsor, you get chastised by the Australian Board.
“We were out doing pub nights every night, making personal appearances to promote a beer. Personally, I couldn’t see anything wrong with that. When Paul Reiffel and I didn’t make the ’97 trip, I told him it was a good one to miss because it wasn’t sponsored by a brewery!”
Rod Marsh
Marsh, who passed away in 2022, was reportedly amongst the original record-holders for beers consumed before Boon arrived and his tally of 51 cans eclipsed team-mate Doug Walters’s 44. Yet Walters nostalgically argued that neither Marsh’s nor Boon’s achievements should count in 2018 owing to their extended flights.
“I think 44 (beers) was my record,” Walters told Fox Cricket. “And Marshy went over and had 45 but as I say, you only set the bar for someone to jump over. Marshy I don’t give the record. I started from Sydney, he started from Melbourne. He went Melbourne to Sydney to London.
“And I don’t give credit to Boony either because he started in Launceston. He went to Launceston, Melbourne and then Sydney to London. We didn’t count the ones we had on ground. We only called those practice sessions, so we were in a pretty good mood by the time we got there.”
Herschelle Gibbs
Whilst celebrating with beverages following a match is typically acceptable, doing so beforehand is generally disapproved of. Nevertheless, for South African batting icon Gibbs alcohol appeared to enhance his performance.
His legendary 175-run innings against Australia in 2006 led South Africa to chase a record-breaking 434 in an ODI. In his autobiography, Gibbs confessed that he was nursing a hangover when he took on the Australian bowlers at The Wanderers in Johannesburg. Despite this, his booze-fuelled innings spanned just 111 balls and included 21 fours and seven sixes.
Jesse Ryder
The formidable Kiwi batsman has had his fair share of alcohol-related incidents. His 2008 season came to an abrupt end after he injured his hand trying to break into a loo at a Christchurch pub, the day following the Black Caps’ one-day series win over England.
It later emerged that Ryder had been on a drinking spree until 1:30am before the match. Another boozy night out in the West Indies led to him missing a team meeting and training session that day, resulting in his exclusion from the subsequent game.
Watch the Ashes live on TNT Sports
The Ashes gets underway on November 21 and all the action in the battle between England and Australia will be broadcast live on TNT Sports. Fans can tune in via discovery+ or Prime Video’s TNT Sports channel.
