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Remember the hero

There is a lot to love about Andrew Flintoff. His gung-ho approach to cricket; his smile; his easygoing charm on and off the field; the way he bowled his heart (or his knees) out for England; his catching prowess; his aggressive batting; Edgbaston; Trent Bridge; his "behind these eyes lie a thousand stories" celebration after the Oval in 05; that cigar; his nickname; the way he loved his supporters back.

There is also a lot to dislike about him. His occasional off-field unprofessionalism; the Fredalo; drinking; celebrity; chasing the money; his on-field posturing; that Jesus pose after taking a wicket; the aggression that sometimes overspilt; his inability to take five-wicket hauls; his inability to knuckle down and play a long innings; believing his own hype; his captaincy; the way his body just failed over and over again.

Ah well. As my old Latin master used to say: "None of us are human." And at least, unlike Ian Botham, Flintoff never grew a mullet. Indeed, his hair always remained sensible while the rest of him could occasionally be scatty.

Flintoff will be remembered as one of English cricket's great characters and one of the almost great cricketers. The very top of the second class, as Simon Barnes calls such men. In truth, his overall figures are not what we - and no doubt he - would have hoped for, but of the many, many "next Bothams" between 1988 and 2009, he is head and shoulders above all other all-rounders we have produced. And at his very best, he was a pleasure to watch.

When Flintoff goes, I wonder whether it will enable some of our players to flourish. Kevin Pietersen has never enjoyed playing with Flintoff. He doesn't understand why he, a more talented cricketer and harder worker off the field, does not get the public love that Fred does. In truth, Pietersen is probably always doomed to play the Greg Rusedski outsider's role with the British public: only worth loving if there isn't a real Englishman around doing just as well.

Jimmy Anderson may also be a better bowler without the shadow of Fred. Anderson admitted himself earlier this year that he wants more responsibility and that with Flintoff around he tends to slip into the background. We saw against the West Indies how Jimmy can thrive when he is the go-to man. Is it any coincidence that Anderson's bowling average when Flintoff is not in the team is ten runs better than when he is?

Given the frailty of his body, Flintoff has done well to play 76 Tests. As he charmingly said in today's press conference: "Not bad given that I was rubbish when I started for England age 20." He will long be remembered and hopefully more for all the good times he gave us than the odd moment of idiocy.

A few landmarks to go before he leaves us: 292 more runs needed to become the 29th Englishman to get 4,000 and 18 wickets to move above Darren Gough as England's eighth most prolific wicket-taker. I suspect that he may need to do either or both if we are to win the Ashes.

Should you have missed it last September, Flintoff was No 43 in our Ashes Heroes series. You may want to go and have a look at it and remember why he was great.

Flintoff's greatest over

Freddie’s injury-ravaged body can take no more, but the England all-rounder will have plenty of memories to dwell upon during his Test retirement. Few will warm his cockles as much as the legendary 2005 Ashes series and six balls in particular. It’s Edgbaston, the second Test, day four. Flintoff is on a hat-trick from the first innings. He doesn’t get it but his second ball of the over claims Justin Langer to bring Ricky Ponting to the crease. And then come four of the most hostile deliveries the Australia captain has ever faced. Relive his fate here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mevNWOCstZ4

Flintoff's retirement is not necessarily bad news for England ... discuss

Frank Praverman

Andrew Flintoff has announced that he is to retire from Test cricket at the end of this Ashes series, explaining that it has taken too big a toll on his body.

The latest problem hit him during the first Test in Cardiff when an old knee injury flared up again, making him a doubt for the second Test, which begins tomorrow at Lord's.

Mike Atherton suggested that if Flintoff is not fit for the match, it does not quite leave England in the hole that some imagine. The same can be said about England's future without him.

"Like a second-hand car with plenty of miles on the clock, Flintoff's body has become unreliable. You can give it as many MOTs as you like but it is a truism that when you set off on a long journey, you are just not quite sure whether you will reach the destination," the Times Chief Cricket Correspondent says.

Atherton explains that without him, England still have two options: "The likelier is that the selectors would rebalance the team, bringing in an extra batsman in the shape of Ian Bell, recalling Stephen Harmison and leaving the final decision between Stuart Broad and Graham Onions, there being no place for Monty Panesar.

"Less likely is that they would continue to play five bowlers, Harmison as a straight swap for Flintoff, because that would leave England's batting looking too thin, with Graeme Swann at No 7 and Broad at No 8. If, in a four-pronged attack, it comes down to a straight shoot-out between Onions and Broad, there is a good argument for siding with the Durham man, although England will be reluctant to dispense with Broad after one poor match."

Of greater note is how the team have fared with and without Flintoff since 2005. In that time, England have played 48 Tests, winning 15, losing 16 and drawing 17. Flintoff has missed 25 of those because of injury. Without him, England have won 12 matches; in the 23 games that he has played, England have won three.

Flintoff's exuberance and enthusiasm have always been part of his make-up and a huge lift to his team-mates. But will his retirement be any great loss?

Have your say now.

A question of batting

Nigel Henderson over on Reverse Sweep has written the most sensible and I hope final word on the Cardiff Test. "One of the things I love about Test cricket," he writes...

"... is that a Test can start with all the talk being about the unorthodox batting of one team’s No1 batsman, and end, five days later, with everyone talking about the orthodox batting of the other team’s No 11."

Amen to that. Well said Nigel. Monty is the new Wilfred Rhodes, mark my words. Ten years time, he'll be walking out to open with Cook.

The wrong blond?

A colleague has drawn my attention to the similarity between Stuart Broad, the England blond bombshell who bowls a bit, and Katherine Brunt, another England blonde, although one who, to my glee and my colleague's disappointment, is less scrawny.

There's more meat to her stats as well. Broad averages 30 with the bat and 40 with the ball in Test cricket, which is not really good enough after 18 Tests, while Brunt averages 31 with the bat and 19 with the ball in six Tests. She's also won a couple of World Cups and took six for 69 against Australia last week. Is she available to play on Thursday?

 

Broad

 

Brunt

The Lord's jinx

If you missed our Ashes supplement on Monday, you may be interested in this piece I wrote about the hoodoo that Lord's seems to have over England in the Ashes. Only one man on the planet has been alive during England's two most recent wins against Australia there, and Henry Allingham, 113, was just a fortnight old when the first happened.

The most recent win was 1934. Go and read how a squashed black cat and a sticky pitch helped England to win.

It also gives me the opportunity to pass on David Frith's observation that the picture that appeared with the piece was not Lord's in 1934, but Trent Bridge. Well spotted, David.

Let's make some things clear...

... in case any Australian readers have missed it by not reading previous posts carefully. This is my very simple response to Cardiff.

1) You were the better side for all bar three sessions. I've never hidden this.

2) England were lucky to get away with a draw and should not have been in the position where they needed the No 10 and 11 to save the day. Can't really say I've seen anyone saying we won this game, but certainly it felt like a small victory in the context of that session.

3) When the chips were down, your bowlers and your bowling selection failed. This does not mean that England are on top, but you have to accept that you blew it

4) We certainly don't think we are on top. There are huge questions to be asked about almost every one of the England team. Possibly only Collingwood escapes censure.

5) We're not as bad as we were in Cardiff. Sadly, I suspect Australia can also get better.

6) Everyone bends the rules a little. Glovegate was naughty but no more. Why not let the umpires get on with running the game and deciding what is or is not against the spirit? England do not claim the moral high ground, nor should Australia. We're all scoundrels if we need to be.

7) This was a thrilling conclusion to a match. Like Edgbaston and Old Trafford 05, people will long remember this. Isn't that a good thing? Sure, crushing England 5-0 might be fun, but wouldn't you get bored if it was all too easy?

8) Passions run high because we all love cricket and we care about the result of this series. But let's not forget our common ground: we all think Harbhajan Singh is a fool.

Border appeals for calm

Can we just bury this whole "he said, she said" spat about the last Test and focus on the fact that it was a great finale to a match that has whetted our appetites for the next one? Perhaps the final word should be given to Allan Border, the former Australia captain and one of the hardest nuts out there, who told Fox Sports today:

"I didn’t read too much into it [the time-wasting], to be honest. I think the explanations were justifiable. They needed their batsmen to know what was going on because it did change from being an over-related situation to a time-related one. I wouldn’t make too much out of it. I think Ricky was in a position at the end of the day that he was frustrated and little things like that do get on your goat. But I think it was justified and it’s a storm in a tea cup and I think everyone has moved on."

Ponting-baiting: the new national sport

Some years ago, Michael Slater, one of the finest opening batsmen Australia have had, was going through a rough time in his career. His marriage was breaking up, his form was going, he was drinking and there were allegations of drug abuse, which he denied. There was also the ridiculous and unfair suggestion that he had fathered Adam Gilchrist's child, which put further strain on him. Slater was suffering from depression and panic attacks and later admitted that he was bipolar. It was a tough time for him.

In one state match during this period, Shane Warne and Darren Berry, of Victoria, decided it would be a smart idea to suggest that Slater, playing for New South Wales, was a time bomb waiting to go off. As he batted, Warne and Berry started alternately saying "tick... tock... tick... tock". It started to wind Slater up. And it went on for several overs.

Eventually, Slater got impatient, played a rash stroke and was dismissed. As he walked off, he glared at Warne and Berry, who said in unison: "Kaboom".

Such is the school of hard knocks that is Australian cricket. No sympathy for the weak. Mental disintegration is what matters. I wonder whether we can use this against them in this Ashes?

Ricky Ponting, I would suggest, is another time bomb. While he does not have the off-field issues that Slater had, he clearly has some anger-management problems - remember his rant at the England balcony at Trent Bridge in 2005, which cost him 75% of his match fee. On Sunday, his frustration after failing to dismiss England's last pair with 69 balls - and who can blame him as England had been comprehensively outplayed all game? - boiled over.

Some Australians are choosing to ignore the comments that Ponting made in the immediate aftermath of the Cardiff disappointment about England playing against the spirit of the game. They focus on the more tempered, gracious and uninflammatory comments he made in the press conference. Fair enough, Ponting is a sensible man and on reflection he quite rightly decided not to make an issue of it.

And this is also the point to admit that the media - both English and Australian - decided to ignore Ponting's reflective comments and seize instead on his Woodfull (or Kumble) style rant. Yes, no one does hysteria or hypocrisy better than we hacks.

 

But look at the pictures of Ponting as the twelfth man, Bilal Shafayat, and physio run on. He is fuming. Did this affect his judgment? At the very most Australia would have had time for only one more over if there had not been the incursions. Sure, they may have got the crucial wicket in those six balls, but they may not. What surprised me was that Ponting did not give the ball to his more potent bowlers - Hilfenhaus and Johnson - and used Marcus North at the close. Was this because North would take less time to bowl his overs and thus more could be got in? Was Ponting mentally disintegrating and failing to realise the best course of action?

It seems a very un-Australian approach to go for as many chances as possible and hope that something comes off. Never mind how many balls you bowl, Ricky. You only need one good one. Quality not quantity and all that.

This explains his immediate reaction afterwards. "They can play whatever way they want to play," huffed the man who has been fined for breaking the ICC Code of Conduct six times. "We came to play by the rules and the spirit of the game. It's up to them to do what they want to do."

It is right at this point to insert a disclaimer. What England did with the gloves and the physio was pretty low and I wish they hadn't felt the need. But as Nathan Hauritz said yesterday: Australia would have done the same thing.

Ponting's frustration was magnified because above anything else, he desperately wants to beat England in England. It will prove his capabilities as a captain. No one denies him his place among the immortals as a batsman. Personally, I am a fan. But as a captain? Well, until he beats England in England, even that 5-0 will not place him among the great Australian captains. Perhaps only beating India in India would mean more to him, so it is easy to understand and to sympathise with him when not everything falls into place.

But the fact that he was clearly angered and wounded in the aftermath of defeat, well that is something we can work on. Operation Wind Up Ponting should be launched. It may be unsporting but it could undermine Australia as it did in 2005. Where's Gary Pratt these days? Pay Harbhajan Singh to walk past Ponting every morning. Get Bilal Shafayat into every press conference. Dress the England physio up as a tea lady (he has the bosom for it). Mental disintegration. Every reminder of his failures will move Ponting closer to kaboom.

Tick... tock... tick... tock... Hey, Ricky, what's the score? Tick... tock...

Competition: be a geek, win a book

Our new Ashes podcast is now online for your delectation. Hope you enjoy it. As well as me, Athers and Mark Chapman, we have a couple of Aussie special guests in the form of Gideon Haigh, writer, historian and my sort of bad club cricketer, and we have Stuart Clark, cruelly overlooked Aussie seam bowler. What we'd give to have him on our side in the second Test.

As you will hear, we also have a competition. Win a copy of my Ashes book, The Best of Enemies, which I may even sign if you are lucky. Simply come up with the most outlandish Ashes-related statistic that you can think of and post it via the comments button below - or email it to me at patrick.kidd@thetimes.co.uk if you are shy about flaunting your geekiness. The best ones win the book. The rest of you can buy it. Go ahead, geeks, make my day.