I really feel for Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff.
The man seems like one of the true gentlemen of world sport and certainly one of the greatest blokes in world cricket.
Not only seemingly self effacing and humble, who can forget that remarkable gesture of sportsmanship after the narrow Australian loss (one could call it an English win but more on that later) in the tense second test at Edgbaston.
To have the presence of mind to console and congratulate a valiant opponent after the closest contest in Ashes history before joining your team mates in wild celebration illustrates a certain depth of character and personality that is rare in your ordinary everyday human being, let alone elite athlete.
Flintoff, due to his prodigious all round abilities and character makeup is probably the only Pom that we would ever wish had had criminal ancestry about 200 years ago or so.
That said, is he the right man to be leading England in their attempt to retain the precious urn?
Simple answer - yes with a but.
Yes because there doesn’t appear to be anyone else capable of leading them and he certainly seems to inspire loyalty.
The but however comes in the form of the admirable qualities mentioned above - I don’t think that he has the mongrel in him, the bastardry needed to captain a team in the manner of someone like Steve Waugh.
To keep the urn out of the determined clutches of this Australian team, especially with Warne, Ponting and Mr Cricket in the form that they are in will require a streak of the mongrel - and a cohesive team performance.
The big difference in the end (apart from undoubtedly the best bowler the game has ever seen) was the way that the teams played.
The English had 4 good players, all contributing individually to their teams effort whereas the Australians had a team (with the exception of Martyn and perhaps Hayden and Langer) of players, all with shoulders to the one wheel.
For England, Collingwood (206 & 22*) and Hoggard (7/109 & 1/29) were brilliant and ones heart must go out to them. That with such fine performances, they were part of a losing team would pain them deeply.
For Australia, almost everyone contributed to what must be described as one of our finest wins ever.
It was probably the erroneous dismissal of Strauss that began the downward spiral, however, as one of my favourite cricket writers, Simon Barnes from The Times noted, the resultant collapse was fraught with madness:
“For superior bowling does not make you play stupid shots, not unless you panic. It started to go wrong for England when Andrew Strauss got a bad decision as England had been going serenely till then. But Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell put together a ghastly run-out, Bell rooted to the spot as if cursed by Harry Potter and Collingwood charging through screaming as if his trousers were on fire.
Kevin Pietersen was out playing his stockwhip-sweep at Warne before playing himself in and Flintoff went wafting at a wide one with feet cemented to the earth. The last of the so-called batsmen, Geraint Jones, gave a catch off a ball that might have been called a wide had he left it alone. All these shots were played, let us remember, in circumstances in which cautious, risk-free advance was the obvious tactic.
This was not an error of tactics, it was losing your head.”
Partick Kidd - whose Line and Length “View from the sofa” is well worth a read , was equally scathing in that amusing manner that the Poms have when it comes to lambasting fallen heroes:
“Hopeless, absolute rubbish. This has to be regarded as one of the blackest days for English cricket. Strangled when they batted, unable to buy a run let alone occupy the crease for long enough to save the game, England were then out-thought, outgunned, outballsed by Australia in the fourth innings. After such a good first two days, nothing could be as painful as this defeat, not even watching the England rugby team.
All credit to Australia, who bowled and batted brilliantly, but England have looked lost today, leaderless and clueless. I thought that after Edgbaston and Trent Bridge 2005 they had learnt how to win the clutch moments, but now they have slipped back into bad old habits. I wonder if this will be a Lord’s ‘81 moment for Andrew Flintoff. He looked as inept a leader as Botham did 25 years ago, wondering why his team couldn’t do what he wanted. He made Ronnie Irani look like Mike Brearley, and that is saying something.”
A question though - did England win at Edgbaston or did Australia lose?
England certainly lost the second test yesterday - there is no way known that they should have let Australia win… but with Kasprowicz and Lee combining in a 59 run last wicket partnership and coming only two runs short of taking a 2-0 series lead, did England truly win that game or did Australia lose it. A bloody hard question to answer. It was certainly the most thrilling Ashes game I have ever watched. Yesterdays was brilliant, amazing, superlative, wonderful, bloody well fantastic - but it wasn’t the edge of the seat stuff that the second test in 2005 was.
I don’t want to curse the lads, but on the back of the inept, spiritless, spineless performance of yesterday - the Poms are surely damaged goods. This could well be a 5-0 whitewash.
The best thing about an English team failing is reading what their own press write about them - this is going to be a great summer of cricket.
Technorati Tags: Ashes, The Ashes, Australia, England, Poms, Cricket, Mr Cricket, Warne, Warnie, Ponting, Collingwood, Flintoff, Lee, Hoggard, The Urn, ineptitude, Simon Barnes, Partick Kidd, The Times, Steve Waugh, whitewash
December 06th 2006 Posted to
Sport
