Career

As a slow left-arm orthodox spin bowler he played 42 Test matches and 20 One Day Internationals for England between 1990 and 2001, and 316 first-class matches, mainly for Middlesex. Tufnell was occasionally inspired with the ball, taking 11-93 against Australia at the Oval in 1997 (for which he won the Man of the Match award after England won by 19 runs) and seven wickets in an innings against the West Indies at the Oval in 1990, but he took his 121 Test wickets with a bowling average of 37.68 across his whole Test career. Mark Waugh theorised that “if you attack him, he can go on the defensive, and it puts him off his game”. According to Michael Parkinson, a British talk show host, “at the age of nine he was opening the bowling and the batting for his club’s junior team”. Parkinson also believes that his “ordinary fielding made him a luxury in the view of the … (English cricket) management (circa August 1996)”. However his fielding did improve during his career. He was nicknamed “The Cat” due to his propensity to be found sleeping in the dressing room. He also acquired the nickname “Two Sugars” due to his well known love of tea. According to England teammate Michael Atherton, Tufnell smoked more than occasionally.
During his career spanning over a decade with Middlesex, Tufnell took more than 1,000 first class wickets in the English game. His autobiography What Now ? ISBN 0002188163 was published in 1999.

Tufnell retired from professional cricket before the 2003 season in order to participate in the “reality television” show I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! which he won, and was a team captain on the sports quiz show They Think It’s All Over until 2005. In 2004, he made two guest appearances on the British soap opera Family Affairs. He also co-presented the game show Simply the Best that year. Tufnell also co-authored a humorous book, Phil Tufnell’s’ A To Z of Cricket with cricket journalist Adam Hathaway.

Tufnell makes occasional appearances as a summariser on BBC Radio’s Test Match Special. Tufnell is now taking on Matt Dawson and his guests as a team captain on on the BBC panel show A Question of Sport. He makes regular appearances as a reporter on BBCs The One Show Tufnell is appearing in one of the teams on BBCs Sport Relief Does The Apprentice.[citation needed] On 12 April 2008, Tufnell and his wife Dawn were guests on the ITV show All Star Mr & Mrs. where they won the top £30,000 prize for their chosen charity, The Children’s Trust, Tadworth.

Tufnell made two guest appearances on the game show Hole in the Wall on 4 October 2008 and on 1 November 2008. Tufnell has taken part in series 7 of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, partnering new pro dancer Katya Virshilas, but they were eliminated in week 9.

Tufnell has appeared in TV commercials, including being the celebrity endorsement profile for an online gambling company.

Tufnell’s first marriage to Alison Squires ended in 1989. He has two daughters; Ellie, 16, with ex-girlfriend Jane McElvoy, and six year old Poppy with ex-wife Lisa Bar. In 1994, after a tour of the West Indies, he went on a drinking binge so his partner, Jane McEvoy, walked out on him with their child. He slapped his partner across the face and McEvoy’s father got revenge by slapping Tufnell in the face with a brick. Tufnell was fined £800 for assault and Michael McEvoy was fined £2,500 for malicious wounding. Three years later, on a tour of New Zealand in 1997 reports emerged that he left a toilet cubicle trailing the scent of marijuana but he was exonerated. During divorce proceeding ex- wife Lisa produced court documents accusing Tufnell of causing her to endure ‘anxiety, stress and an eating disorder’. She also claimed he had continually harassed her. He is now married to wife Dawn.