The Prime of Andrew Flintoff
It's been more than 10 years since Andrew Flintoff was a consistently top-class cricketer, and he was only really a consistently top-class cricketer for about three years.
Since then, he's become even more famous, a pretty solid mainstream TV presence, known beyond his original talent, while English cricket has gone through hundreds more ups and downs, twists and turns. Great careers have come and gone. Cook and Broad had not begun their test careers at the time of the 2005 Ashes, and James Anderson had barely started. That's how long ago it was that Flintoff was at his best.
And hindsight tells us to look at Andrew Flintoff's test career, in the light of Broad, Anderson, Stokes, Ali, Kallis, Ashwin, Jadeja, Shakib, Swann and say ... hmm ... not totally sure what all the fuss was about.
So what was all the fuss about?
I first became aware of Flintoff in the summer of '97. He was captain of the England Under-19s and TV did a little feature on their "test matches". It just took a couple of images of him biffing one over mid-off and stuttering in to bowl with those oddly short strides, and I was won over. This was the new Botham! The first and last redeemer. I hadn't been this excited since Mark Ealham ... or David Capel ....
But that was the thing with Flintoff. It was true from the start. He did have that something, something which wouldn't be denied.
He made his test debut in 1998 aged just 20. There was nothing amazing about that in itself. The selectors would try anything back then. Ben Hollioake had made his test debut even younger the year before. Though an exceptional talent who I desperately wanted to succeed, I didn't have the same gut feeling of potential greatness about Hollioake, certainly not in test cricket (what a fabulous T20 player he'd have been though ...). He just didn't have the bite in his bowling nor, I suppose, the essential batting technique.
Flintoff's first test was the famous Atherton/Donald match. He didn't pull up trees, got a young Jacques Kallis out but not much else. He didn't actually do much for years.
There is so little of any worth in his first few years of international cricket, it's amazing they didn't give up hope. A few ok performances in ODIs, literally nothing in tests, no decent bowling figures, no quick 50s, nothing.
In the winter of 2001/02, there was a 4-for against India and then, even more thrillingly (I remember listening in the middle of the night) a rapid 137 against New Zealand in the test remembered for Nathan Astle hitting the fastest 200 in tests.
But even that was a bit of a false dawn. By the end of 2002, he was averaging under 20 with the bat and almost 50 with the ball in tests. These are career-ending figures, four years into it.
Yet I remember, in the summer of 2002, going along to Lord's for a bit of a dead last day against Sri Lanka, England batting it out in a very dull way, and we watched John Crawley, desperately playing for his career, making a searingly boring 40*. And the crowd were literally booing him and begging him to get out, because they wanted to see Flintoff bat. Even though he had only scored more than 50 once in a test match. Because the hope was always there.
And so it was, in 2003, the prime of Andrew Flintoff began, and it was the best period in English cricket, definitely in my lifetime, possibly ever. The most successful and the most fun.
Because there'd been no consistency before. I'd been hanging on English cricket for almost two decades and there was the odd glorious win but, more, there were all the crushing losses, and no real knowing which way it was going to go. There was a side that just never knew how to hold it together. It had some decent players but no rock-solid centre.
Of course, Flintoff isn't the only key. Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher had begun instilling some smart thinking and resilience, Michael Vaughan had taken it up a notch. There were several good players in the mix now - Trescothick, Harmison, Hoggard and a few younger ones coming through who would make a massive impact like Strauss, Pietersen, Bell and, briefly, Simon Jones.
Flintoff first hit his stride as a test player in the summer of 2003 against South Africa - he played a few glorious counter-attacking innings and helped England get an unlikely 2-2 result. That was the summer Vaughan took over from Hussain, a transitional summer. In one of the tests, the bowling line-up was, alongside Flintoff and a very young Anderson, Martin Bicknell, James Kirtley and Kabir Ali. The last summer of confusion, but a crucial one.
After that, everything went right and it was hard to believe. Again, it's noteworthy what a short space of time it lasted. The summer of 2003 until the summer of 2005, when England won match after match, series after series, when Andrew Flintoff very rapidly became the best cricketer in the world.
He was quite a simple cricketer, so in that sense he was quite simple to predict and analyze.
1. He was a tremendous slip fielder who caught everything. I really don't remember him dropping a ball. He also had a great arm when required.
2. He has admitted that even in his prime he was an uncomplicated bowler, who basically just tried to hit the seam with one small variation. I remember thinking, in his unsuccessful early years, that he wasn't bowling badly, he needed to only make a small adjustment, to really understood what it took to get out batsmen out, and the wickets would come.
And that's what happened. He never had the bowling brain of someone like Jimmy Anderson, never prised batsmen out by guile, but he went from just trying to hit the bat hard to doing so with intent, and to hitting the spots where the odd one would move away, he bowled a good yorker and he bowled faster. He went from an 86mph bowler to 90+ in his prime.
He didn't have many spells like Broad and Anderson, even like Gough and Caddick because he didn't swing it much, he wasn't really an "English conditions" bowler as such. But he was relentless, open-chested, always "at" the batsman.
3. He was similarly uncomplicated as a batsman, he wasn't innovative, but I thought his technique was good. He mainly hit with a straight bat. crunched it beautifully off front and back foot through the off-side, or got down on one knee and hit it over the leg side. His forward-defence was good, exaggeratedly memorable.
It wasn't technique that prevented him playing long innings but patience. You'd see, if he got to 70ish and then hit two or three firm shots that went to a fielder, he'd get himself out, almost inevitably.
When he was playing a good innings, he wasn't all over the place and constantly on the edge, he didn't look like getting out, he looked in control ... maybe if he'd gone higher up the order, he'd have acquired more patience - it was never really required of him, to be fair.
So, for the most part, he didn't become the best cricketer in the world with unforgettable 5-fors and 150s. Mainly, he did it with torrid 3-fors and slightly frustrating 60s.
But the influence of someone who could a) strangle opposition batsmen to the extent of buying so many wickets for his bowling partners and b) regularly change the momentum of a faltering innings from 150 for 4 to 300 for 6 in a session, surged through the side.
In the 1990s, not many of those other players would have come through and been major test players - but the winning mentality and the confidence and the joie de vivre was palpable.
It was so much fun watching that side - there were unlikely heroes like Ashley Giles and Geraint Jones at every turn. There were multiple sixes and opposition batting collapses, funny celebrations and outrageous catches. The important thing to remember is my generation had simply not seen this before - England won 10 test matches in a row, then beat South Africa away and, of course, Australia.
Of course, since then, there have been great sides and great players but it was Flintoff's team that began it all.
And just as quickly, his prime was over. Properly over on the disastrous 2006-07 Ashes tour, even though there'd been some signs over the previous year that he wouldn't quite hit the peaks again.
It wasn't over for England. That great side inspired, arguably, two more great sides (one of which he played a small, almost totemic role in), and England had around 10 years in test cricket which were so much better than what we'd known before, we forgot it was all special and to be treasured for what it was.
But now that's over. England are, once again, a middling, inconsistent group of players, unbalanced and unsure of themselves.
It needs another Flintoff. The question of whether Stokes is, or will be, remains open. But even if he recovers from his current pretty large setback and is the backbone of a strong England side for years to come, I don't believe there'll be quite as much joy as there was in the prime of Andrew Flintoff.
Since then, he's become even more famous, a pretty solid mainstream TV presence, known beyond his original talent, while English cricket has gone through hundreds more ups and downs, twists and turns. Great careers have come and gone. Cook and Broad had not begun their test careers at the time of the 2005 Ashes, and James Anderson had barely started. That's how long ago it was that Flintoff was at his best.
And hindsight tells us to look at Andrew Flintoff's test career, in the light of Broad, Anderson, Stokes, Ali, Kallis, Ashwin, Jadeja, Shakib, Swann and say ... hmm ... not totally sure what all the fuss was about.
So what was all the fuss about?
I first became aware of Flintoff in the summer of '97. He was captain of the England Under-19s and TV did a little feature on their "test matches". It just took a couple of images of him biffing one over mid-off and stuttering in to bowl with those oddly short strides, and I was won over. This was the new Botham! The first and last redeemer. I hadn't been this excited since Mark Ealham ... or David Capel ....
But that was the thing with Flintoff. It was true from the start. He did have that something, something which wouldn't be denied.
He made his test debut in 1998 aged just 20. There was nothing amazing about that in itself. The selectors would try anything back then. Ben Hollioake had made his test debut even younger the year before. Though an exceptional talent who I desperately wanted to succeed, I didn't have the same gut feeling of potential greatness about Hollioake, certainly not in test cricket (what a fabulous T20 player he'd have been though ...). He just didn't have the bite in his bowling nor, I suppose, the essential batting technique.
Flintoff's first test was the famous Atherton/Donald match. He didn't pull up trees, got a young Jacques Kallis out but not much else. He didn't actually do much for years.
There is so little of any worth in his first few years of international cricket, it's amazing they didn't give up hope. A few ok performances in ODIs, literally nothing in tests, no decent bowling figures, no quick 50s, nothing.
In the winter of 2001/02, there was a 4-for against India and then, even more thrillingly (I remember listening in the middle of the night) a rapid 137 against New Zealand in the test remembered for Nathan Astle hitting the fastest 200 in tests.
But even that was a bit of a false dawn. By the end of 2002, he was averaging under 20 with the bat and almost 50 with the ball in tests. These are career-ending figures, four years into it.
Yet I remember, in the summer of 2002, going along to Lord's for a bit of a dead last day against Sri Lanka, England batting it out in a very dull way, and we watched John Crawley, desperately playing for his career, making a searingly boring 40*. And the crowd were literally booing him and begging him to get out, because they wanted to see Flintoff bat. Even though he had only scored more than 50 once in a test match. Because the hope was always there.
And so it was, in 2003, the prime of Andrew Flintoff began, and it was the best period in English cricket, definitely in my lifetime, possibly ever. The most successful and the most fun.
Because there'd been no consistency before. I'd been hanging on English cricket for almost two decades and there was the odd glorious win but, more, there were all the crushing losses, and no real knowing which way it was going to go. There was a side that just never knew how to hold it together. It had some decent players but no rock-solid centre.
Of course, Flintoff isn't the only key. Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher had begun instilling some smart thinking and resilience, Michael Vaughan had taken it up a notch. There were several good players in the mix now - Trescothick, Harmison, Hoggard and a few younger ones coming through who would make a massive impact like Strauss, Pietersen, Bell and, briefly, Simon Jones.
Flintoff first hit his stride as a test player in the summer of 2003 against South Africa - he played a few glorious counter-attacking innings and helped England get an unlikely 2-2 result. That was the summer Vaughan took over from Hussain, a transitional summer. In one of the tests, the bowling line-up was, alongside Flintoff and a very young Anderson, Martin Bicknell, James Kirtley and Kabir Ali. The last summer of confusion, but a crucial one.
After that, everything went right and it was hard to believe. Again, it's noteworthy what a short space of time it lasted. The summer of 2003 until the summer of 2005, when England won match after match, series after series, when Andrew Flintoff very rapidly became the best cricketer in the world.
He was quite a simple cricketer, so in that sense he was quite simple to predict and analyze.
1. He was a tremendous slip fielder who caught everything. I really don't remember him dropping a ball. He also had a great arm when required.
2. He has admitted that even in his prime he was an uncomplicated bowler, who basically just tried to hit the seam with one small variation. I remember thinking, in his unsuccessful early years, that he wasn't bowling badly, he needed to only make a small adjustment, to really understood what it took to get out batsmen out, and the wickets would come.
And that's what happened. He never had the bowling brain of someone like Jimmy Anderson, never prised batsmen out by guile, but he went from just trying to hit the bat hard to doing so with intent, and to hitting the spots where the odd one would move away, he bowled a good yorker and he bowled faster. He went from an 86mph bowler to 90+ in his prime.
He didn't have many spells like Broad and Anderson, even like Gough and Caddick because he didn't swing it much, he wasn't really an "English conditions" bowler as such. But he was relentless, open-chested, always "at" the batsman.
3. He was similarly uncomplicated as a batsman, he wasn't innovative, but I thought his technique was good. He mainly hit with a straight bat. crunched it beautifully off front and back foot through the off-side, or got down on one knee and hit it over the leg side. His forward-defence was good, exaggeratedly memorable.
It wasn't technique that prevented him playing long innings but patience. You'd see, if he got to 70ish and then hit two or three firm shots that went to a fielder, he'd get himself out, almost inevitably.
When he was playing a good innings, he wasn't all over the place and constantly on the edge, he didn't look like getting out, he looked in control ... maybe if he'd gone higher up the order, he'd have acquired more patience - it was never really required of him, to be fair.
So, for the most part, he didn't become the best cricketer in the world with unforgettable 5-fors and 150s. Mainly, he did it with torrid 3-fors and slightly frustrating 60s.
But the influence of someone who could a) strangle opposition batsmen to the extent of buying so many wickets for his bowling partners and b) regularly change the momentum of a faltering innings from 150 for 4 to 300 for 6 in a session, surged through the side.
In the 1990s, not many of those other players would have come through and been major test players - but the winning mentality and the confidence and the joie de vivre was palpable.
It was so much fun watching that side - there were unlikely heroes like Ashley Giles and Geraint Jones at every turn. There were multiple sixes and opposition batting collapses, funny celebrations and outrageous catches. The important thing to remember is my generation had simply not seen this before - England won 10 test matches in a row, then beat South Africa away and, of course, Australia.
Of course, since then, there have been great sides and great players but it was Flintoff's team that began it all.
And just as quickly, his prime was over. Properly over on the disastrous 2006-07 Ashes tour, even though there'd been some signs over the previous year that he wouldn't quite hit the peaks again.
It wasn't over for England. That great side inspired, arguably, two more great sides (one of which he played a small, almost totemic role in), and England had around 10 years in test cricket which were so much better than what we'd known before, we forgot it was all special and to be treasured for what it was.
But now that's over. England are, once again, a middling, inconsistent group of players, unbalanced and unsure of themselves.
It needs another Flintoff. The question of whether Stokes is, or will be, remains open. But even if he recovers from his current pretty large setback and is the backbone of a strong England side for years to come, I don't believe there'll be quite as much joy as there was in the prime of Andrew Flintoff.
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