Steven Davies – and Andy Flower’s finest hour

We are very lucky to have Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss in charge of the England team. If further proof were still needed of their impeccable people-skills, professionalism, and simple humanity, it’s been provided by their peerless handling of Steven Davies.

Davies has today become the first ever serving professional cricketer to publicly out himself as gay. But his England team-mates have known of this since October last year, when Davies decided the time had arrived to disclose his sexuality to the dressing room.

The first person he told was Andy Flower, on the eve of the squad’s departure for the Ashes. In response, Flower spent an hour with Davies, talking through all the implications, and devising the best way forward. Flower and Strauss then volunteered to personally ring each member of the team to make the disclosure on Davies’s  behalf.

As Davies told the Daily Telegraph: “I owe them both a lot. They were 100 per cent behind me and made me feel everything would be all right. In fact, I felt I was probably making a big deal out of it.”

You can imagine how terrified Davies must have been about breaking the news. He would have feared ostracism, or bullying, or worse. And an England coach less enlightened or insightful as Flower might easily have shrugged off Davies with a curt ‘pull yourself together, lad’. Or even something far less sympathetic.

It’s hard to believe that, twenty or thirty years ago, Davies would have received such a well-judged response. With the greatest respect, would the likes of Ted Dexter or Ray Illingworth have handled the situation so sensitively?

The real hero in all this, of course, is Steven Davies himself. As everyone will rightly observe, he has been extremely brave. England supporters, surely, will all wish him the very best. And it’s to be hoped that cricketing opponents realise that any sledging on the subject is beyond the pale.

But why has no other active professional cricketer been able to come out? Statistically, there must be a significant number of cricketers who are gay. Is it fear of how others will react – or are gay men simply deterred from entering professional cricket in the first place? It’s striking that, in a country where we get soppy about gay showbiz stars – as an example, remember the interest in Elton John’s wedding – perceptions are very different in cricket, and sport generally. Especially as, in my own experience as a club player and a follower of the game, cricket people are usually intelligent and humane. Yet, if you play village cricket, how many openly gay people do you ever encounter? Almost certainly, very few.

And if it’s difficult for gay cricketers in a relatively progressive nation such as England, how much tougher must it seem in other countries, where culture and attitudes are sometimes less tolerant.

The answers are probably complex and largely lie in society as a whole. But if there’s anything cricket can do, it’s to realise – as Andy Flower did – that a gay cricketer may feel that, in coming out, not only is his emotional well-being at stake, but also his cricketing career itself. Coaches at a senior level have a duty to help safeguard both the mental health and the career prospects of those in their charge. Flower and Strauss appreciated this. Perhaps they, alongside Davies, can set an inspirational example.

Maxie Allen