LONDON, Nov 4: Duncan Fletcher, the former England coach, has defended his decision to reveal Flintoff’s drinking problems in Australia in his autobiography Behind the Shades.

Fletcher told the Sunday Telegraph that he wouldn’t have disclosed the story if it hadn’t been for the ‘Fredalo’ incident during the World Cup – a late-night drinking session which ended with him being fished out of the sea in the early hours of the morning.

“People have turned round and said, ‘should I have brought it up?’ From my point of view the two [incidents] were directly linked. You had a situation where an incident took place and rightly or wrongly I kept it in-house, then in three or four weeks’ time we had a similar affair. I just thought it was important it was brought out in the open.

“If the pedalo affair hadn’t happened I wouldn’t have revealed it [the story of England’s abandoned practice in Australia]. Having had a chat with him, if nothing had happened, I definitely wouldn’t have revealed it. But they were so directly linked I was taken aback by it: enough is enough sort of thing.”—Agencies