"It had hardly been a glorious winter, with the 5-0 Ashes thrashing...But nothing had prepared me for the thunderbolt with which Mike Atherton struck me after we had lost the final Test in Sydney. Doing an interview for Sky Sports he had asked me about an independent review which he had learnt was to be conducted into our defeat.

"I knew nothing about it. This was a terrible way to find out. Nobody had the decency to tell me. I can honestly say that was the lowest point of my cricketing career. I felt completely isolated. Not even my employers were backing me up during such a difficult time," Fletcher said in his autobiography, serialised in the Daily Mail.

However, Fletcher who was retained by the ECB till the ODI World Cup in the West Indies said he had earned the respect of players who bid a tearful adieu to him, which was an indication of his, a successful stint as the coach.

"It all ended in tears... Those tears offered me the most humbling of stories. They told me I had been successful in my seven-and-a-half-year reign as England coach, that I had earned the respect of the players.