The greatest sporting stars have a habit of writing their own scripts. In the end they’re who they are because they can turn on the magic when it matters – at least when it matters to them. So it was that inevitably, having announced his retirement from the long form of the game, Flintoff bowled England to victory in the Second Test, chest puffed out, fists clenched.
It’s a strangely fascinating thing – to watch the career trajectory of a cricketer: a little intimation of mortality, because their rise and fall reminds us of the shortness of our own human life. I’m old enough to remember the excitement of first noting in the newspapers the presence of ‘Underwood’ as a name in the previous day’s cricket scores whenever Kent played. It started to crop up increasingly regularly. Who was this Underwood? What was causing batsmen to succumb so frequently to his wiles? ‘Deadly’ subsequently became a fixture in the England side, and took many wickets with his uncompromising accuracy and subtle variation. But Derek Underwood is now long retired: a distant memory re-activated by occasional replays of black and white footage, although I carry his approach to the wicket forever in my head, a model of repeatability.
I first remember Andrew Flintoff as an anecdote told during a rain delay on television by David Lloyd, one-time England player, umpire, pundit, after-dinner speaker. Something to do with a bucket of water and a ball which had caught the young Lancastrian where it might have hurt him the most. Standard cricket fayre. ‘Lovely lad’, said Lloyd. ‘Promising cricketer.’
Then before long, after rave notices in the press, he’d been promoted to the England team, as a hard-hitting batsman who could bowl a bit. When he first arrived on the international stage he looked gauche, and frankly a little out of his depth. There was poor shot selection, a touch of the blacksmith. But England persevered and he grew in stature, and was encouraged in his bowling. The action was unorthodox, and put a great deal of stress on a heavy frame. As they tended to say at the time, he was a ‘big unit’. But he could bowl really fast, and even if there was little subtlety of cut and swing, batsmen found the bounce he generated intimidating. He got wickets for other bowlers too as batsmen relaxed, glad to be away from Flintoff’s end. And his batting improved to the point that I think he once passed fifty in eight successive England innings, although he increasingly struggled to repeat that consistency. Boy, could he hit the ball hard. He was a vital factor as England won the Ashes in 2005: he may yet see the trick repeated in 2009. He’s at times been a complete idiot off the field, but on it, he’s always given of his best. He remains an enigma. There’s a belief that he makes those around him perform. Yet we seem to win as many Test matches without him.
Where will he stand in the pantheon? Talking only of Test cricket his record looks modest when compared with the greatest England all-rounder of my lifetime, (Sir) Ian Botham. Botham managed nearly four wickets a Test, Flintoff just two and a half. That’s a statistically very significant difference, and Botham’s batting average was better too, on less good pitches and arguably against generally better bowling. They were both extraordinary catchers of a cricket ball, but personally I think Botham just shaded it. Flintoff has lived by instinct and brutal strength. Botham too was at times hot-headed and ill-advised, but say it quietly, he was a cricketer who thought a great deal about the game, particularly his bowling. He’d try anything to get a wicket, and often did, but there was a plan. More often than not.
The other near-all-rounder who could perhaps be bracketed with these two was Ted Dexter, now in his mid-seventies. Dexter was a toff, and a noted eccentric. He could have made a career at golf, if he’d had a mind to – he was an exceptionally fine amateur player. These days there might have been a hard decision to make, in view of the money available in the two sports. Dexter was a far more accomplished batsman than either Flintoff or Botham, and the figures show it. He averaged 47 per innings over 62 Tests, and today that figure might easily be inflated by 5 or 6 because of the nature of the pitches. He had a square cut like no other. His combination of strength and timing simply lashed the ball to the boundary as Jessup must have done half a century earlier. It was perhaps the most telling shot of any cricketer I’ve seen, utterly and ultimately authoritative. His bowling appears not to stand comparison with the other two, and yet…He’s sometimes described as medium-paced, but I suspect he would have registered in the mid-eighties miles per hour on his day. Although he took more than four hundred first class wickets for his county, Sussex, he managed only 66 for England. They underused him, and it may be, although I have no clear memory of this, that the mechanics of his whole-hearted, jerky action, rather like that of Craig White in more modern times, rendered him susceptible to injury. Little footage of Dexter seems to survive, or at least get played. That’s a pity.
They’re saying at the moment that the day of the all-rounder is over. Too much strain on the body. Nonsense. Every team ideally needs someone who can contribute with both bat and ball. There’ll be great all-rounders again, but the truth is they don’t come often. Each country may see one in a generation. Enjoy Freddy while you can.
England 425 and 311 for 6 declared. Australia 215 and 406 all out
