Cricket fred

[Banquo]

Really fell apart since lunch yesterday- abject after Root and Brook

[Galfon]

Credit to Pak. for taking the series seriously and adjusting to their strengths, and going for Eng weaknesses - different to other hosts admittedly but very effective. Not sure if such vast pitch variation is acceptable at elite stages in sport, though it's used in other field sports to some degree.

[Galfon]

'New look' white-ball team has a bit of an old-look with the first outing at the Sir Viv Stad...absoloute pasting.
They get another chance there tomorrow before a final match in sunny Barbados...( organisers do like deciders so Eng. will probably somehow scrape the 2nd.. )

[Puja]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/ ... onal-score

All out for 7 runs is a hell of an accomplishment. I wouldn't've credited it possible at any level, before it happened.

Puja

[Galfon]

Tough for Eng. that the ball start swinging at the start of their innings - a Quack for Zak already

[Banquo]

Tough for Eng. that the ball start swinging at the start of their innings - a Quack for Zak already

great recovery. brook rode his luck well. Ball was hooping early on- I don't think we made the most of the bowling conditions on day 1

[Galfon]

Certainly needed that luck - he's sure on a roll at the moment.Pope looks more comfortable below 3, but it will be interesting to see how long they run with the Bethell experiment.

[Banquo]

Certainly needed that luck - he's sure on a roll at the moment.Pope looks more comfortable below 3, but it will be interesting to see how long they run with the Bethell experiment.

Unfortunately all bar Duckett look uncomfortable at 1-3. Suspect Crawley would be awesome at 6

[Galfon]

Nearly home n 'hosed which seemed most unlikely early in Eng 1st inns...the latest imports have both done a bit too, which will please those doing the picks.

[fivepointer]

Good win.

Big performance from Carse, runs for Pope and Stokes and a nice 50 from Bethel to round things off.

[Banquo]

Brook on fire, and we could have been in an even stronger position. 1st hour the wicket was maaad

[Puja]

Brook on fire, and we could have been in an even stronger position. 1st hour the wicket was maaad

Yeah - there's a lot of people castigating the England top order for losing their wickets and criticising Bazball, but frankly that was a hell of a bowling wicket and I don't think defending your way our of that one would've got anyone anywhere. The tail possibly need to have a word with themselves though - they're better than they showed.

Brook really is such a good player. Had a brief flirtation with a slump earlier in the year during the end of the WI series, against Sri Lanka, and for some respects in Pakistan, but that was still "Harry Brook's only had one 50 in 8 innings and keeps getting out in the 30s" and "Harry Brook's not scored very much this tour other than that innings of 317 off 322" rather than a slump by anyone else's standards (Crawley would kill for that run of scores right now!). But now he looks right back to his best and seeing it like a beachball.

Puja

[Banquo]

Brook on fire, and we could have been in an even stronger position. 1st hour the wicket was maaad

Yeah - there's a lot of people castigating the England top order for losing their wickets and criticising Bazball, but frankly that was a hell of a bowling wicket and I don't think defending your way our of that one would've got anyone anywhere. The tail possibly need to have a word with themselves though - they're better than they showed.

Brook really is such a good player. Had a brief flirtation with a slump earlier in the year during the end of the WI series, against Sri Lanka, and for some respects in Pakistan, but that was still "Harry Brook's only had one 50 in 8 innings and keeps getting out in the 30s" and "Harry Brook's not scored very much this tour other than that innings of 317 off 322" rather than a slump by anyone else's standards (Crawley would kill for that run of scores right now!). But now he looks right back to his best and seeing it like a beachball.

Puja

Bazball had nothing to do with the top 4 not scoring as you say. Lower order....well going from 217-4 to 280 all out is careless.

[Galfon]

Decision to field now makes the 3 - 0 series win not so easy - seamers ok considering, but the Kiwis have let it slip a bit.
Alot may rest on how the pitch holds up over the course; Smart catch that out deep by the magic-man!

[Puja]

Decision to field now makes the 3 - 0 series win not so easy - seamers ok considering, but the Kiwis have let it slip a bit.
Alot may rest on how the pitch holds up over the course; Smart catch that out deep by the magic-man!

Yeaaaaah, I think 3-0 might've gone now anyway!

Puja

[Banquo]

Decision to field now makes the 3 - 0 series win not so easy - seamers ok considering, but the Kiwis have let it slip a bit.
Alot may rest on how the pitch holds up over the course; Smart catch that out deep by the magic-man!

Yeaaaaah, I think 3-0 might've gone now anyway!

Puja

bit annoying that we've basically chucked in the towel in this game. I expect our travelling support are even less happy.

[Galfon]

Victory now slipping from England's grasp - HB defies the ICC batsman rankings again..

[Galfon]

Eng got pumped 4-1 in the smashey series, and about to be humped 3-0 in the ODI's.
In these conditions, our bowlers appear easy pickings for Ind batsmen.No wonder Buttler looks down.
Mind you, Ahmedabad - 'decision with that shot' appears more so with Eng., than the hosts..

[Galfon]

...now dumped out the Champions Trophy by Afghanistan in Lahore, after a clown-show in the field. Fantastic knock by Ibrahim, mind.
That's 1 win in 10 matches in the white-ballers, suggesting all is not well.

[fivepointer]

Our white ball cricket has fallen off a cliff. A shake up is required starting with the captaincy.

[Banquo]

Our white ball cricket has fallen off a cliff. A shake up is required starting with the captaincy.

the bowling is esp shocking

[Puja]

Steve Smith withdraws a run-out appeal in the name of the spirit of the game, after an Afghanistan batter wanders out of his crease before the ball was officially dead: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/videos/cn7vv03jkn7o

Puja

[Banquo]

Steve Smith withdraws a run-out appeal in the name of the spirit of the game, after an Afghanistan batter wanders out of his crease before the ball was officially dead: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/videos/cn7vv03jkn7o

Puja

Think we can thus claim we won the ashes then

[Puja]

Steve Smith withdraws a run-out appeal in the name of the spirit of the game, after an Afghanistan batter wanders out of his crease before the ball was officially dead: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/videos/cn7vv03jkn7o

Puja

Think we can thus claim we won the ashes then

As the Welsh will tell you, a moral victory is better than an actual victory.

Puja

[Banquo]

Call me soft, but this brought a tear to my eye. Big up to Rob Key, who is a top bloke, hasn't got everything right, but a big heart. And kudos to Freddie for his candour.

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/cricket/ ... -wn7cfgmc0

“That day in Cardiff, it took me ten goes to leave my bedroom. I couldn’t get out of the room.” In a quiet corner of a west London restaurant, Andrew Flintoff — scarred and showing flecks of grey in his beard now — remembers the day, in September 2023, when he stepped back into English cricket, into the spotlight and into public life again.

It was, in many respects, a run-of-the-mill one-day international, England against New Zealand at the fag-end of an Ashes summer. Flintoff had played in 141 of those during his career, but this one, his first involvement with the England team as a coach, and his first public appearance after an accident that had a profound impact on him, both physically and mentally, was anything but ordinary.

“In that hotel room in Cardiff I was so anxious and worried. I eventually went down to breakfast; sat down and chatted with Reece Topley and then Jos [Buttler]. I had to go back to my room to get my baseball mitt and ‘flicker’ and I was waiting for the lift again and heard footsteps. I knew it would be ‘Stokesy [Ben Stokes]’.

Close-up portrait of a man.
Flintoff says if one good thing has come of his accident, it is that he has got back into cricket
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLAND
“I didn’t really know him then. I’ve built a great relationship with him since, but I was anxious about that, standing in the lift with him. We were both stood there. He’s ‘Stokesy’ and I am supposed to be like that, I suppose, but I didn’t feel like that.

“I got on the team bus. Jonny Bairstow came and sat with me; I’ve known Jonny since he was young, from playing with his brother. In the dressing room, Joe Root came over, one of the best men you’ll ever meet, and everyone made me feel so welcome. Slowly but surely I started to find my feet. And sitting on the balcony and being pictured. Even the press were nice about me. It’s amazing what an accident can do.”

The “accident” Flintoff refers to was, of course, the horrendous car crash he suffered while filming an episode of Top Gear in December 2022, which resulted in severe injuries and extensive surgery, the effects of which — some visible, some not — will remain with him for life. It was also the catalyst for his return to the game as a coach: “If there is one good thing that has come out of it,” he says, “it’s getting back into cricket.”

The story of his reconnection with the game through his roles with the England Lions and Northern Superchargers and the welcome he has been given in return, goes back much further, though. Let’s start in late 2010 when he finished with serious cricket prematurely, aged just 31, because of injury. Other than a brief comeback in 2014, it sparked a lengthy break with the game, although the itch never left him.

No doubt being one of four England cricketers of the past 50 years — Geoff Boycott, Ian Botham and Stokes the others — whose performances, character and personality transcended the back pages, made it easier for Flintoff to find avenues outside the game, but was it that, or did he fall out of the love with cricket? “I don’t know about falling out with cricket, but I fell out with myself a bit,” he says.

“After I finished I moved away from the game for a bit, which is a good thing. I didn’t want to watch it, because I felt I should still be playing but things move on so fast and you just get left behind. I hid away from it a bit, I suppose. All of a sudden, you’re not involved. You question your very existence at times. Who are you? What’s your identity?

“I fell into the TV stuff and started making a career in that. I didn’t think I was very good at it but I kept getting asked back. Doing all these shows. I was thankful for it. I travelled a lot, met lots of people, went to places I didn’t know existed, but I still missed cricket. It’s what I enjoy and what I wanted to do.

“Whatever show I was doing there was never that same fulfilment of playing cricket. I never made relationships with people that I did playing cricket. You take some jobs for money, but it doesn’t necessarily make you happy.

“In all honesty, if I had done it [coaching] ten years ago, I might not have lasted all that long, but taking a step back from the game, you see another side of life; you experience other things and then when you come back into cricket, you are far more appreciative of it and you realise, yes, this is special. This is something that I genuinely love.”

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Flintoff said that none of the jobs he landed in TV gave him the same fulfilment as playing cricket
GETTY
It was a love passed down to his two boys, Rocky and Corey, who are now involved in professional cricket themselves, and was most clearly seen in the TV programme Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams, in which he introduced a group of young men from Preston to the game and, by doing so, tried to transform their outlook on, and opportunities in, life.

“From a coaching point of view, that programme stood me in such good stead. I had the idea and the original plan was that there must be untapped talent around Lancashire or Preston, and wouldn’t it be nice if we could find a cricketer? But it became more than that — cricket became a vehicle for giving these kids a chance.

“Some of them had specific needs: autism, ADHD, got in trouble at school, had been given up on, really. What I found is that once you engage with them, build that trust and those relationships, you could start to help them. The hard part was setting the boundaries to begin with. You want to give them enough room; you want to be their mate to some degree but you need some sort of authority as well. The more I did it, the more I loved it.”


The first series, released in the summer of 2022, pre-dated the accident, and the second, eventually filmed in Kolkata in March 2024, was interrupted by it. “I’d told them we were going to India and then it didn’t happen, but I remember ten days after the accident committing to taking them. I was still on morphine and probably thought I could do anything; it might have been unrealistic but it gave me a focus to get better. I didn’t want to be another person to let them down.

“When we went [to India], I still wasn’t sure whether I was doing the right thing for myself. The first bit of filming we did was on one of the maidans and I couldn’t do it, I was struggling. I was on my own and couldn’t deliver a piece to camera. After that, I made sure when I was filming I was around the boys all the time and that really helped. It was a great lesson: it wasn’t about me, but I was getting a lot from it. These kids were helping me as much as I was helping them.”


Help came from other quarters in the 15 months between the accident and filming that second series in India. The friendship between Rob Key, the director of England men’s cricket, and Flintoff goes back almost 30 years, to England Under-19 days. When Flintoff needed help in those desperate months after the accident, quietly, and unbeknown to most, Key found a way of drawing Flintoff out of himself and back to the game.

It started with an invitation to the Ireland Test match in June 2023, and then to the Ashes Tests that followed — but done privately, in rooms out of the way, and out of view, with only the occasional, chosen visitor allowed. As the Ashes series swung violently this way and that, gripping the nation, the occasional, simple message would land on my phone: “Fred’s here; come and say hello.”

Andrew Flintoff and Robert Key of the England cricket team celebrating a victory.
Flintoff has credited Key with helping him get back into the game
GETTY
Slowly, Flintoff began to feel more comfortable around people again. “It’s just a measure of him [Key]. He’s very bright; he did it unassumingly, under the radar, but it was the only time I was going out of the house, other than for medical appointments. When I saw him for the first time since the accident, I had my face mask on, glasses on, bucket hat. He blurted something straight out — “It’s the invisible man!” — but it was perfect, the first time I’d laughed really since.

“We’ve always chatted about cricket and coaching, and he’s always been pushing me to get back into the game, but it was secondary that summer really. What he did that summer was above and beyond. He was helping me to get through something and helping me for the rest of my life. A lot of people — family obviously — helped me through and ‘Keysie’ was a core part of that.”

Informally, Flintoff was asked by Key to help with England Under-19s, first of all, and found he loved it. “It was a big step. I didn’t know if I wanted to do it; didn’t know if I could do it, with all the emotions, the self-consciousness and the anxiety. But it was absolutely amazing. These lads just wanted to play cricket; they don’t care what you look like, don’t care anything about you really, but they just want to pick your brains and I got swept up in it.”

So he was all in on coaching after that experience with the under-19s: putting his head above the parapet at Cardiff with the white-ball team for the first time; six months of coach education to get up to speed and get his qualifications, and, eventually, the formal process of applying for the England Lions job and the interviews that followed.

“I have a good relationship with Keysie but I’m not after anything from him at all. If I hadn’t got it, it wouldn’t have affected our relationship. When and if the time comes and he says, ‘Thanks but no thanks, Fred,’ we will just go back to what we are, which is mates.

“But I was desperate to do it. I was committed. I hope I can show people that I can do a good job. I’m passionate about it and want these lads to get better and play for England. Drawing on my experience in cricket and life helps. I try to take bits from everyone I played under: ‘Fletch’ [Duncan Fletcher] encouraged us to be ruthless when we had the opposition under pressure; ‘Bumble’ [David Lloyd] backed me so much as a young, nervy 16-year-old and built great relationships; Bob Simpson told it as it was; Peter Moores had great empathy; Stephen Fleming was very relaxed.”

And Brendon McCullum, and the criticism that the England set-up is all vibes and too little hard, technical work? “Hard work? It’s a pre-requisite, but we don’t bang on about that. You come in and work hard and play for each other. We’ve got excellent coaches: Neil Killeen [the former Durham bowler], a real technician who knows bowling inside out and has been a brilliant help to me. I’ve formed a great partnership with Ed Barney, the performance director. He’s got cricket knowledge but comes from a different sport. He challenges us and puts different ideas forward.

“After I got done on the pedalo in the World Cup in St Lucia in 2007 [a late-night drunken escapade gone wrong, publicly], it was like I had Covid, no one would come near me. I was sitting alone on the beach one day after that, feeling miserable. Baz [McCullum] came over and I knew him a little bit. ‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘I’m not so sure,’ I replied. ‘Should I sit with you a bit?’ he said. You remember these things and the people who looked after you along the way.”

It’s clear that Flintoff has been touched by the embrace of the game again and it completes the circle of a career that will be given full treatment in the forthcoming Disney+ documentary. Cricket and coaching has played a significant role in his recovery. “It’s always going to be there, but in a strange way, I’ve got an acceptance of it now. I’m not fighting it. I still get flashbacks at night and anxiety and other stuff but I know it’s happening and I’m accepting of it. When I’m around cricket I don’t get it; I’ve found comfort in the dressing room again.

“It has made me appreciate the game and the people a hell of a lot and made me realise that this is the place where I want to be. This is the place I feel most comfortable and this is what I get the most pleasure from, get most excited about and I care about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still do the odd Bullseye now and again because I’ve got bills to pay, but it’s cricket first and everything else on my terms to fit around that.”

A lot of time has passed, a lot has happened, since those glory days of the 2005 Ashes, which did so much to inspire the current generation of players: reverse-swing thunderbolts to Ricky Ponting, smiting Shane Warne into the stands, commiserating with Brett Lee and drinking Downing Street dry. Twenty years ago! “When I see guys from the 2005 series now there is still an incredible bond. I get excited to see them. It’s not quite like being back in the dressing room, but it something that unites you. I saw Geraint Jones the other day; it was great to see him.

Freddie Flintoff holding the Ashes urn.
Flintoff says that he does not identify with the person that he was during his playing days
NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LTD
“It was a different time. We are all products of our environment. I look back now and think I would have done so many things differently. We drank more; didn’t work as hard; these kids now are athletes. I remember towards the end of my career sat in the corner with Harmy [Steve Harmison], bellies hanging over our trousers and you’d look in the corner and see a young Alastair Cook. Every decade, players get more professional and they get better.

“My boys watched a rerun of 2005 when they were younger and they looked at me as if to say, ‘Is that you?’ Yeah, it was, but I feel a great detachment when I see myself on television. I don’t feel like an ex-cricketer. I don’t identify with that player or that person. You change and grow up hopefully. It feels like it was someone else. It’s bizarre.”

As Marc Aspland’s wonderful portrait shows: different, but the same; scarred, but healed; vulnerable but at peace, and, with those flecks of grey in the beard, eager to pass on his wisdom and experience and inspire the next generation again.