The fire in the heart of the iceman

'I'm a huge traditionalist but you can't let tradition get in the way of taking the game forward' © Getty Images

John Stern meets the England coach and discovers a burning passion behind the poker face

Duncan Fletcher has never met Sven-Goran Eriksson. He says he would quite like to but time never allows. Superficially they have much in common: both are outsiders coaching England, both are stereotyped as poker-faced icemen.

An hour in Fletcher's company suggests a different comparison. The fire in the belly, the single-mindedness, the ambition, the attention to detail, the love of horse racing (not to mention the on-field success) all remind you more of Sir Alex Ferguson.

Fletcher is anything but cold, though the warmth is not always friendly. There is plenty of record-straightening during the interview, as there is in his new book about the Ashes victory. There is also passion. He is passionate when talking about success ("winning the Ashes is as good as the World Cup"), about his all-consuming job ("you never switch off") and about the future of the game ("I'm a huge traditionalist but you can't let tradition get in the way of taking the game forward"). For example, Fletcher is a great advocate of allowing each side to refer three umpiring decisions per innings to the TV official.

Nor is the Ferguson-like intensity reserved for cricket. Fletcher is equally animated about talking rugby with two former Springboks, his previous engagement with the turf when he bred racehorses in Zimbabwe, or about winning a UK passport after a 14-year wait.

Despite all that, we do not tend to hear much from him. The fire might burn underneath but, in his capacity as coach, he usually presents a stony face. Unlike his predecessors David Lloyd and Ray Illingworth he is not a purveyor of sound bites, though he did coin one of cricket's great clichés - `coming to the party'. In fact, for him to make a public utterance during a match is normally a bad sign. The coach is obliged to speak when no Englishman has produced a performance worthy of a media conference, what the press call a 'Duncan day'. Fletcher is a major reason why those days become increasingly rare.

Inside the bubble
On the face of it Fletcher did not look a natural to produce a book, although he was due to write an autobiography after retiring. In fact he has produced a good, insightful one. The Ashes volume was considered after the Edgbaston victory and was conditional on England winning the series. The book was ghost-written hastily (Fletcher modestly calls it a "rushed job") by Steve James, who played under him at Glamorgan. It is often addressed personally to the reader (or is that the press?) and at times reads like an after-dinner speech. Sometimes you sense the author thinking `And another thing ...' "I just wanted to put across what we're trying to do. There are times when you feel that people misinterpret the way you do things."

Usually Fletcher prefers to keep things hidden. This is not just bloody-mindedness, though he seems perfectly capable of that too. He might tend towards inscrutability anyway but it also seems to be part of the grand design. `The Bubble' is the shorthand journalists and Fletcher himself use to describe the self-contained culture of Team England. "It's about trying to keep things within the team," Fletcher explains, "so other people wonder what's going on. I ask the guys not to say too much. If you're creating doubt in people's minds, then you've got an advantage. I'm sure the team understand. That's how you get this loyalty. For us to win we have to have an edge over everyone else.

"The role of a coach is to ask `How do they do that?' and `How can we counteract that?' How to counteract it even if I don't know how they do it. You have a battle plan and the opposition have a battle plan, so the less they know about your plan the better."

That is short-term tactics but long-term planning is also one of Fletcher's fortes. Tomorrow never comes. "You're always looking ahead. If you can find one Test cricketer - and I'm talking genuine Test cricketers - every two years you're doing well. We have to start looking for replacements now. With the batters we're fortunate that we have only one player over 30 - Vaughan - so we can look to go with those guys for the next four years. But the bowling is a concern because we've had injuries to Freddie and Jones. Tremlett doesn't seem too stable. It concerns me."

Chris Tremlett should have gone to Pakistan but, like Simon Jones, pulled out injured. You can sense Fletcher's frustration, particularly at Tremlett's absence. He has clearly earmarked him ("he has that potential: quick, bouncy and tall") and wanted to learn more about his character on tour.

Winning character

' When we came back from Australia in 2003 we decided to go with youth in the one-day games' © Getty Images

Fletcher is big on character and has earned a reputation for knowing how to identify it. Vaughan, Trescothick, Strauss and Geraint Jones all, to some degree, owe their England call-ups to Fletcher's instinct. How does he do it? What is he looking for? "I really don't know. You have to be aware of what the team requires. There are certain roles that need to be played - have they got the personality and character to play those? I have known cricketers who were very, very talented but mentally hadn't got it. They're not going to get anywhere. Then there are guys who are technically flawed but mentally strong. I don't think you can put a limit on how far those players will go."

Once Fletcher selects someone he tends to stick by him. Central contracts and the coach's steadfastness brought stability to the selection of the England Test team, though not to the one-day side. "When we came back from Australia in 2003 we decided to go with youth in the one-day games. There was a plan which I can't divulge but it'll come out at some stage. But I genuinely believed we had to go with young players. We had a four-year period [before the next World Cup] to do it and we're two years into that. We will have to be more consistent now, to give them experience."

But why have England not performed so well in the one-day game? "Batsmen have to be wristy to hit balls to strange places in one-day cricket and England players aren't very wristy. We don't produce players like the Asian countries do. And some of our bowlers lack variation. We're moving very fast in that direction. When I first took over there were experienced bowlers who couldn't bowl a slower ball but it was common knowledge everywhere else. I used to bowl a slower ball. We're always playing catch-up."

The Ashes - "We didn't play well"
He is looking for improvement in the Test side too. "We stepped up a mark against Australia but I still believe we didn't play well. I genuinely believe we can play even better if we get it all right. We dropped too many catches and we could have made a couple more hundreds. I'm only saying that because I know they're capable of it; otherwise I wouldn't say it."

Australians, players and public, have mooted the idea that England only sneaked home in the Ashes. Fletcher is having none of it. "After Lord's there were, say, three sessions a day for four days over four matches. That's 48 sessions. How many did we win? Then you ask how close was it."

This is one of several occasions when Fletcher becomes impassioned, giving a glimpse of the fire inside. In his book he talks, with great self-awareness, about his public persona and the need to be a calming influence by hiding some emotions from even the team. On the final morning of the Ashes Fletcher was retching with nerves in his room. However, his concern was not for himself but of revealing his anxiety to the players, who were nervous enough anyway.

His ability to hide those nerves reveals the streak of southern African toughness in Fletcher. His respect is hard-won. "You don't just learn man management overnight. A lot of it is in your upbringing. You can't go on a course to learn it. It's a feel you pick up over the years of how to handle people in all different situations. It's got to have helped that I went to boarding school at the age of seven. As a seven-year-old you didn't go home to mum and dad with a problem. You learn to survive and handle people." A serious test of those skills came this summer, when Fletcher agonised over the selection of Kevin Pietersen ahead of Graham Thorpe for the Ashes. He rang his regular confidants Nasser Hussain and Mike Atherton, who both said Thorpe. He talked to Michael Vaughan and his fellow selectors and went for Pietersen.

These are the toughies. Decisions like that might not keep Fletcher awake at night but they help explain why he never switches off and admits struggling to relax. "Even on the golf course," he says, "Matthew Maynard knows how to beat me - he just starts talking about cricket. You'll be walking down the fairway and thinking about a guy in the team, how you're going to talk to him or what you're going to do with him."

Captains old and new

'When you are not helping, when you're not adding value' © Getty Images

An earlier and more sudden crisis came with Nasser Hussain's resignation in July 2003 after the first Test against South Africa. "The poor guy had had enough. He had hinted at it before but I said he couldn't because we didn't have a successor. We'd had an eye on Vaughan but I didn't want him to do it because of his batting. I wanted him to consolidate after Australia. I thought Nasser would carry on through the South African series. After that would have been a good time for Vaughan to take over."

On the differences between the two captains Fletcher says "one is quiet and keeps to himself while the other is outgoing and mixes with the boys. Nass just didn't mix with the guys. Both have very good cricket brains. Vaughan has learnt it so quickly. He has a bunch of individuals who really believe in him and he's done well getting them to believe in themselves."

It is these personal relationships which bring Fletcher most satisfaction. Winning the Ashes was great but Fletcher is not in it just for the results. He describes himself, in business terms, as "consultant" to the team. "There is nothing better than working with these guys one on one. When I went up to Leeds to see Vaughany [to help with his batting after the Lord's Test] I drove away feeling fantastic. When you are not helping, when you're not adding value, then there's a problem." When he stops enjoying that side of the job, he says, he will pack it in.

One of his winter tasks is to forge a relationship with Peter Moores, the new Academy director, who unlike his predecessor Rod Marsh will not be a national selector. How would Fletcher assess his relationship with Marsh? "Rod obviously did a good job with the Australian academy and was working with the players here. It was difficult to get involved with what he was doing there. He was setting it up. We communicated mainly when we were selectors and you're going to have your disagreements as a selector. I disagree with Graveney and Geoff Miller. Everyone enjoys it, it sells a story."

Another Fletcher story that has filled a few column inches is his long quest for a UK passport, which was granted, with uncanny timing, days after England won the Ashes. "It's been such a battle ... In the Rhodesia days I couldn't tour or go on holiday because of sanctions. The only place I could go was South Africa. So it's always been a sensitive thing." Now he has his passport all he needs is his entry in Wisden's Other Cricketing Notables section. John Buchanan is in but not Fletcher.

At the end of the interview Fletcher smiles for the camera, making due ironic reference to his default, dead-pan visage. Then he asks our photographer, whom he knows well, to take some passport photos of him. "You're not allowed to smile in these are you?" says Fletcher. "They've got that one right." You see, he does have a sense of humour.