Ben Duckett ‘I’m certainly trying to think more about what I say’

Cliff Notes – Ben Duckett ‘I’m certainly trying to think more about what I say’

• Ben Duckett expressed frustration over a misinterpreted quote regarding Jasprit Bumrah, leading to social media backlash and his decision to deactivate his Twitter account.
• He acknowledged the pressures of being a professional athlete and the importance of careful communication, especially after recent media scrutiny following England’s poor performance.
• Duckett remains focused on his role in the upcoming series against India and the Ashes, emphasising the need for the team to win and improve their media interactions.

Ben Duckett: ‘I’m certainly trying to think more about what I say’

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk about this, or if I was going to,” says Ben Duckett, when asked at Nottinghamshire’s pre-season media day to reflect on a week that began with an interview in the Daily Mail and ended with him deactivating his Twitter (X) account.

For those not chronically online, a quick summary. As part of a wide-ranging chat, Duckett stated he would not be surprised by Jasprit Bumrah this summer during India’s five-Test series, having faced him at the start of last year, when England lost 4-1. Bumrah took 19 wickets at 16.89 across four Tests, though only one of those was Duckett, who finished the series with 343 runs at 34.30.

That quote was repurposed elsewhere, including at Wisden.com, whose article was singled out by Duckett for carrying a headline – “Nothing from Bumrah will surprise me, England should beat India this summer” – that he felt misappropriated his original quotes. Their framing, from his perspective, suggested he was far more bolshy than he actually was.

Social media went into overdrive, jumping on the back of yet another Duckett-ism. After replying to a few posts he felt were out of pocket, he decided to close his account.

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Duckett received an apology from Wisden.com for the presentation of their article. Though not long has passed, there has been a healthy amount of deliberation from the 30-year-old. About the space he inhabits as a top-level sportsperson, opening the batting for England across all formats, and both the responsibility and scrutiny – reasonable or otherwise – that comes with it.

“I guess it’s the world that we live in,” Duckett says. “I’m a professional sportsman, and when I talk to you guys [the media] like this, whatever I say is out there and for people to judge, and that’s completely fair enough.

“I struggled last week because the headline I read wasn’t something I’d said. And it wasn’t with the person I did the interview. I’ve had communication with them. That was the thing I didn’t like, because people were then having a go and judging me on something that I didn’t go and say.

“If you ask me about Jasprit Bumrah, I’d say, right now, he’s probably the toughest bowler to face in the world. What I said in the interview was that I’d faced him before – it’s not like I’m going into a series not knowing what he’s going to do.

“The game he got me out in India [the second innings of the first Test at Hyderabad] was with a big reverse-swinging ball which I thought wasn’t. I had a big drive and missed it. That was a massive learning point, and then I managed to get through the rest of that series without him getting me out.

“I’ve always been very good at blocking media out and blocking opinions of people because they’re completely entitled to them. It felt like a good opportunity to actually reply to a couple of people and go, ‘look, this isn’t what I said’. And obviously then I had some other communication with people who were apologising. That was nice. But then, it was potentially a learning for other people to maybe not go so hard straight away from reading a snippet of something.

“I’d like to think I won’t not be me in interviews. I’d find that really hard to do, and I wouldn’t want to do that. It’s been an interesting week but I think for me, right now, being off Twitter is the right thing and it’s a lot easier life being off Twitter.”

Just two weeks ago, men’s managing director Rob Key conceded the team “speak a lot of rubbish a lot of the time”, and the need for them to “get better” in interviews. At this stage, the ECB has no intention of restricting media access to players, knowing they play a vital role in growing the game. In many cases, they believe the way forward is for longer-form chats to make it harder for quotes to be taken out of context.

While Key’s words were not aimed solely at Duckett, the Nottinghamshire batter does have previous for misspeaking. During that 2024 India series, he suggested England should take some credit for the imperious form of opener Yashasvi Jaiswal. Earlier this year, he was lambasted for stating he did not care if England lost 3-0 in an ODI series to India “as long as we beat them in the final of the Champions Trophy”. England were subsequently dumped out of that tournament after losing all three of their group stage matches.

“That one in India [ahead of the Champions Trophy] was a big learning for me. Especially in big series where a lot of eyes are on you, it is really important what you say.

“I’ve always really enjoyed doing media and I’ve always been very honest. It just feels like, off the back of a pretty tough few months for England, people are going to judge more and they’re going to have more opinions on your comments. I don’t know now – will I be more apprehensive going to do media? I don’t know. I’m certainly trying to think more in what I say, because I don’t think there is necessarily a wrong thing to say, but I don’t want to say something that a lot of people are going to judge me on or twist in however way.”

That Duckett has found himself in front of a microphone so often is largely down to the fact his bat has done its fair share of talking since he returned to Test side in Pakistan at the end of 2022. Only he and Joe Root have played all 28 Tests since, and his consistency – 2,160 runs, third behind Root and Harry Brook, with four centuries – and emergence as a senior player often has him fronting up for media duties, in good times and bad.

The latter was certainly the case at the start of this year. Duckett finished a two-month stint on the subcontinent as England’s most productive run-scorer in the Champions Trophy and the preceding white-ball tour of India. With the team losing 10 of 11 matches across this period, grasping for positives, as is the wont of the set-up under Brendon McCullum, led to a few eyebrow-raising comments.

Ben Duckett cracks a cut Getty Images

“I did quite a few interviews this winter after me performing well but us losing, and in my eyes that’s the hardest interview you can possibly do. You’ve just lost a game, you’re feeling pretty down, but you’ve done well personally. It’s pretty hard to judge someone.

“The way that the England side want to play is that really exciting brand of cricket and I do think that has been caught up in the media. I’ve not helped it, and maybe some others haven’t helped it. But all we want to do is win.

“If you were to put a camera in the dressing room after every single loss for the India and Champions Trophy, you’d see a group of lads who were distraught, who were not happy, who weren’t thinking ‘oh we were involved in a great game against Australia today, we got 350 and we lost, who cares’. We were all hurting.

“I think sometimes the way we play and stuff might look like we don’t care. But there’s a lot that goes into it behind the scenes with Baz and the coaches. There’s so much more to it and we’re certainly a group, moving forward now, it might look a little bit different. I don’t think the way that we’ll play will be different but… we want to win games. For me, those two months in India and the white-ball stuff, they hurt me so much.”

Duckett will initially taper into the season with a bit-part role in Nottinghamshire’s start to their Division One campaign, having spent the last few weeks back in the country focusing on his fitness, admitting his body was “hanging on” during the Champions Trophy.

He intends to make his appearances in the County Championship count. Nevertheless, it will be with a view to what lies ahead, namely another shot at India and this winter’s Ashes in Australia. Legacy defining for the team?

“I mean, internally that won’t be the way I’d say it,” Duckett says. “You may be right. I don’t think many Test sides have been defined by an Ashes away trip. I think it’s an extremely tough place to go and not many people go there and win.

“We certainly believe we can. It’s a long way off by now, but hopefully all the bowlers are fit, everyone’s fit and firing. We’ve got an incredibly big series before that to try and win on home soil. We’ve got the best two sides in the world that we’re playing in the next six months, so it’s exciting and they’re two massive opportunities… if we can go and perform well and beat them, it’ll be an incredible achievement.”