A celebrity for his own benefit

Phil Tufnell: role model?

On the first afternoon of the first Test against Zimbabwe, Phil Tufnell was paying the price of his new-found fame. His journey from the media centre to the pavilion started off as a gentle stroll, interrupted by the odd autograph hunter, and turned into a Hitchcockian scene of mad panic with Tufnell making a mad dash for safety from the swarm of children. It may have been faster than Tufnell has ran in 17 years of professional cricket.

No player past or present would receive that kind of attention at Lord's. But then Tufnell is not a cricketer any more. He is, according to the chat-show host Jonathan Ross, "a hero". Really? Long-suffering England captains and ex-wives might beg to differ. What cannot be disputed is that by winning I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here! Tufnell became the most famous cricketer in the UK. Which sadly says more about English cricket than it does about Tufnell. The ECB wasted little time in shamelessly jumping on his bandwagon by getting him to promote the Twenty20 Cup and the Durham Test by having him sign autographs in the Metro centre in Newcastle.

The ECB wants the best of both worlds. It is desperately keen not to appear dismissive or po-faced (its word) about Tufnell's celebrity yet it also wants it known that it does not want to endorse him as a role model. In reality, it is hard to see how he can tangibly promote a game in which he is taking no active part.

All he has done for cricket so far was deluding around 12 million viewers of ITV that he knows how to play a cover drive. One of the show's more compelling and surreal moments for cricket fans was the sight of a Tufnell masterclass on batting to his fellow celebrities. Holding a plastic yellow bat, Tufnell - with tongue firmly in cheek - guided the other contestants through a cover drive while speaking in a faux pukka MCC accent.

His victory also said much more about the other contestants than Tufnell. By basically being his normal, blokish self, he showed how variously screwed-up, vain, shallow and duplicitous his fellow jungle competitors were.

Tufnell has spent a lifetime trying to be himself while captains and coaches wanted him to be someone else, so his TV success was based on acting normally. Compared to the rest of the contestants, he came across as down-to-earth, funny, charming, sensitive and level-headed. Those who played with him would recognise some of those traits. Many cricketers were glued to the show. Nasser Hussain was one of them. "I hate reality TV but I was glued to it because the Cat was on it. I'm very close to him and I enjoy his company. I found him absolutely hilarious. He was always going to be brilliant and he's got a job for life on things like that."

For life? That's highly debatable but Tufnell certainly has to keep himself out of mischief. At the end of May he started presenting his own show on Radio 5 Live and later this year he takes over from David Gower as a team captain on the BBC television comedy sports quiz They Think It's All Over. There is also rumour about another TV project. His autobiography of 2000 was reprinted under the title Phil Tufnell: The Autobiography - Get Me Out of Here and the plan is to publish an updated version as soon as possible.

He was the main guest on Jonathan Ross's BBC1 chat show although he could barely get a word in edgeways through Ross's constant jabbering. According to Gower, that will be good practice for Tufnell since Ross is a team-mate on They Think It's All Over. During the Ross interview he still sounded like a cricketer. He seemed unable to refer to his host by his given name. Tufnell variously called him, "mate", "Jonboy", "big fella" and "big lad". You can take the boy out of the dressing room but ...

The benefit to cricket of the Tufnell Phenomenon is minimal unless he returns to playing the game properly (ie not for Lashings). The only winner is Phil Tufnell and even then it is hard to see how he can sustain this notoriety long term. The original title of his autobiography has it right: What Now?