England / Ralph Ellis / 18 October 2010 /

James Anderson has been injured in a bizarre pre-tour boxing accident but Ralph Ellis is still encouraged by England's Ashes preparations...

Once upon a time a warm-up meant sitting next to the radiator in the dressing room. I can still remember watching games at Upton Park when I was a boy when you queued up to go through the turnstiles two hours before kick off, and the only people you saw on the pitch until were the British Legion band.

Times change, and now there are enough cones to shut off a lane or two of the M6, plus assorted players going through all sorts of games for up to an hour. You wonder anybody's got any energy left when it finally starts.

Nowhere has the warm-up culture caused more problems than in cricket. The last few years have brought a litany of stories when top stars have got hurt merely preparing for action. They have trod on balls, turned ankles playing football, got caught in tackles, or fallen awkwardly. But England have taken that to a new level by getting Jimmy Anderson hurt, not in the warm-up to a match, but a warm-up to a tour - thanks to a cracked rib from being punched by 6ft 7ins Chris Tremlett in the boxing ring during the team's "boot camp" bonding trip to Bavaria (perhaps Saracens rugby team had a better idea simply having a drinking contest at the Oktoberfest!).

But it's interesting to learn today that neither captain Andrew Strauss or coach Andy Flower have any regrets about the mishap. Strauss met all the cricket writers yesterday and insisted: "The camp was about testing us as a group. The reason we need to do that is because we have some tough times ahead."

And Flower gave an even more assertive response in an interview with The Times. "It was my decision for them to box, someone got injured, so I'll take the blame; my decision, my responsibility. If we did another camp so far out from a tour I would definitely include boxing again."

Hopefully that wouldn't include putting Anderson, whose nicknames include 'Daisy', in with a man five inches taller. But I still like Flower's confidence and positive approach. England's players begin a more orthodox preparation session today when they meet either batting coach Graham Gooch or bowling maestro David Saker for some planning, and then they're at Loughborough all together on Thursday for fitness tests and medical screening. And even more encouraging is that the build up before Brisbane on November 25 includes a proper acclimatisation period of nearly a month Down Under. That shows lessons have been learned from 2006 when England virtually walked straight off the plane and into the field for the first Test.

England's price to win the Ashes series has been shaved a bit further, down to [3.35] now, as optimism continues to grow after the Aussies' twice threw away strong positions in losing 2-0 in India. "I wouldn't attach much to that series," says Flower. "I'd attach more to the fact that we beat them in 2009 and in the World Twenty20 final. Those are the sort of things that give our guys belief."

That, and the knowledge that if it gets a bit tasty they can always get Tremlett to sort things out with his fists!

Five things you might not know about Chris Tremlett

1. Born September 1981 in Southampton, his grandfather Maurice, who died when Chris was two, played three Tests for England and was Somerset's first professional captain in the 1950s.
2. Dad Tim, a handy medium pace bowler, played more than 200 first class matches for Hampshire before becoming their coach then director of cricket
3. Chris was 18 when he made his own first class debut against New Zealand A. The first ball he bowled bounced more than the batsman, Mark Richardson, expected. The man at short leg took the catch.
4. Four stress fractures in his feet at different times have hampered his progress since
5. He was denied a hat-trick on his England One Day debut against Bangladesh when the ball hit the top of middle stump but failed to dislodge the bails.

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