Champions for the Ages

You can’t keep a good man down and Andrew Flintoff demonstrated again at Lords on Monday that he is far more than that with a brutal display of the art of fast bowling that clinched victory for England in the Second Test. When he declared last week that this Test series would be his last the British media rushed to evaluate Flintoff’s position in the pantheon of cricketers. Would he be remembered as a cricketing great?

With a bowling average marginally to the north of his batting average those that swear by statistics are adamant that Flintoff will not be remembered as a great. Fortunately players are not judged merely by statistics but through their contribution to the game and the bigger the game the bigger the contribution from Flintoff.

If the majority of the current Australian team were cowering behind the couch when Flintoff took the 2005 Ashes battle to the likes of Langer, Hayden, Gilchrist, Gillespie, McGrath and Warne not to mention Ponting, Clarke and Lee then they had the fortune to have a front row seat in the shooting gallery this time round. They would have heard rumours that he’d lost his effectiveness. They would have known that he was injury plagued and that his body could no longer adequately support his burning ambition. They thought they had him cornered in Cardiff but at the home of cricket it was Flintoff that wrote the script as only a great player can.

There are fast bowlers that are naggingly accurate, some that are seriously quick but none that currently play the game and only a select few before who have been able to combine the accuracy, pace and sheer outright hostility that Flintoff possesses. To have those attributes is one thing but to harness them repeatedly on the biggest stage of all and to affect the course of a game in its final throes is what elevates Flintoff to the category of greatness in his field.

A curious thing happened as the England team were welcomed off the pitch back in to the Long Room. Ricky Ponting, a cricketer with a less than spotless reputation for sportsmanship, had already given a balanced on-pitch interview when he appeared to bow down to Flintoff as he entered the Long Room ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glegJFgXUBc). Of course he may just have been adjusting the trip-wire for the big man but in an admirable display of sportsmanship Ponting went on to shake every England player’s hand. Conduct in defeat as well as in victory is the mark of a great sportsman.

Be certain though, Flintoff didn’t win this test on his own; the cornerstone of victory was an outstanding opening partnership between Strauss and Cook that set the tone for the match, followed up by exemplary swing bowling from Anderson and rounded off by Flintoff. However, the ability to hold the crowd in the palm of one hand and gladiatorally hurl the red leather ball at 93mph with the other is one of the great sights in world sport. Let’s enjoy Andrew Flintoff, this champion for the ages, whilst we still can for the remainder of the summer.