One of the many England cricketers who turned to reality television, Tufnell was a skillful left arm orthodox spinner in the mould of Indian great Bishen Singh Bedi. Tufnell is more known for his colorful personality on and off the field, and given that discipline was not his strength, he more or less had a strained relationship with his employers, the ECB. Born in Barnet, London in 1966, Tufnell went to Highgate school and was soon appointed captain of the school's junior team at a tender age. Young Phil had to take a decision quite early in his life as to whether he wanted to play cricket professionally or continue being a surveyor which he was trained in. He went on to choose cricket and started playing cricket from 1988. Apart from taking 121 wickets in 42 Tests for England, he also played for Middlesex till 2001.


Tufnell's bowling style was very uncomplicated. It included a gentle run up and a skip and a jump in the end. He had masterly control over flight, indeed majority of his victims were beaten in the air than off the pitch. He spoke of his 'ball on a string' and his straighter delivery was not the easiest one to decipher. His career best figures of 7/47 came against New Zealand in Christchurch and England won the match by an innings. There was another occasion of him taking 7 wickets in the first Australian innings at the Oval. He added 4 more wickets in the second innings and England went on to register a famous victory, by just 19 runs. Although he has just 3 other 5 wicket hauls to his name, his left arm spin had potential on a given day to single handedly take his team to victory.

The obvious talent on the cricket field came with it's own idiosyncrasies. He was known to throw tantrums on the field and was nicknamed 'Cat' because of his love for dressing room naps. Moreover England cricket in the pre Fletcher and Flower era was more about county than country. England cricket has never been the best breeding ground for spinners and more so for a left arm spinner. Quite a few of his teammates allege that Tufnell was a chain smoker. To add to this, Tufnell was one of those batsmen who preferred the ball hitting the stumps than his body which meant that he had a batting average of 5. All this resulted in him being in and out of the England squad. He continued to excel for Middlesex and at the end of his first class career, he finished with a staggering 1057 wickets at 29.35 apiece.


A new beginning awaited the end of his cricketing career. Always one to hog the limelight on account of his behaviour, he built on his popularity by making several television appearances. These included I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! which he won, They Think It's All Over, A Question of Sport and Strictly Come Dancing. Today, Tufnell is a highly popular celebrity which have ensured a career in TV and radio which are more successful than the one in cricket.

Fact: Tufnell is believed to be a 'Tea' addict. This habit led to him being nicknamed 'Two sugars'

By Siddharth Prabhakar