Aug 25 2009
Freddie Flintoff: A life in Test cricket
Well, it seems you can’t escape this guy at the moment. Just hours after helping England regain the Ashes, talismanic all-rounder Freddie Flintoff has undergone surgery on his troublesome knee, which could keep him out for up to twelve months if you believe everything Ian Botham tells us.
I wouldn’t worry about him having nothing to do in the meantime, though, as Fred really does know how to spend his spare time. Rumours abound that he’s actually purchased his own marina and pedalo club in Blackpool, where he will no doubt spend a lot of time teasing lifeguards and attempting motorbike stunts on jetskis.
Oh yes, and there is of course a rather large private bar with flatscreen TV and snooker tables… on water.
Debate the validity of these (admittedly, rather silly) reports all you like, but if everything in the press is true (and why wouldn’t it be?) I would not put it past the big Preston all-rounder to make such a purchase, though he has, admittedly, settled down these days. His alcohol-fuelled antics are largely a thing of the past, perhaps unfortunately for cricket.
You see, when Big Fred turned up for the celebratory open top bus ride in 2005, he–along with one or two other ‘night owls’–became the subject of much media focus. Not for his on-field performance, rather his dazed and confused demeanour - slightly worse for wear from the night before.
This time, the press have had to focus on stuff like, well, the actual games, and that’s giving cricket a bad name. We want to see blood, mud and controversy splattered all over the papers, not Jonathan Trott holding his bat aloft - that’s just a bit too run-of-the-mill for my liking.
This northern lad from a mining town’s performance in that series brought cricket to the back pages of the traditionally working class tabloids, bringing this predominantly middle class sport to the living room of the average Joe (or even Fred), if only for a few months. Freddie made cricket sexy again, a feat perhaps not achieved since tabloid fave Beefy Botham in his heyday.
Yes, there will inevitably be comparisons to the Big Man. Though numerous had been touted as the next Botham through the 1990s, it’s difficult to think of a genuine all-rounder performing at the very highest level of international cricket for England in between the two.
He might not have had the impressive averages that Beef finally achieved, but he is definitely the Botham of his generation: a big-hearted talisman, a powerful force that could galvanise and inject confidence into any team with his never-say-die, persistent attitude.
Ultimately, perhaps that’s what ended it all. He could have made the conscious decision a few years ago at the age of 28 that it was all too much and he would concentrate on batting for the rest of his career, perhaps going on to play Test cricket until the age of 38 as a specialist number six and occasion medium pace bowler. But I don’t think that’s what Freddie’s about. He has to give everything he has in everything he does, batting, bowling and fielding included.
