Freddie Flintoff on EA Cricket 2007

An off the cuff verdict from Andrew Flintoff on his continuing association with EA Cricket:

“It’s great to return for the second year working with EA SPORTS. Their previous games have been a good source of entertainment and relaxation for myself and the team when on tour, and I’m sure the competition will be just as fierce this time round between the lads as we look to retain the Ashes on the Cricket 07 game, as well as looking to do it for real out in Australia.”

In no way were those words put in Flintoff's mouth. If you were going to blatantly make up a quote for someone to advertise your product, don't you think that you'd make it a bit snappier?

We're looking forward to the picture above reappearing only with '2005' replaced by '2007'.

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Andrew Flintoff bowling

Andrew Flintoff was England's best bowler by quite a wide margin. Each of his spells only served to emphasise just how poor and/or ineffective everyone else was.

On this pitch, against these batsmen, with these cricket balls, bowlers really do have to make it count, particularly with the new ball. Steve Harmison was dire, progressing to nearly-respectable. Matthew Hoggard was predictably solid yet ineffectual. James Anderson bowled some good balls and a number of bad ones.

Andrew Flintoff, however, put the ball exactly where he wanted straight away. He started accurately, testing the batsmen, and the more he bowled, the quicker he got. Either he doesn't get nervous, or he's got a technique that he can totally rely on.

England's Rugby World Cup winning fly-half, Jonny Wilkinson, once said: "I always aim to be able to leave the training pitch confident of my technique." That confidence is just as important as having the technique. If you've got faith in your method, that will go some way to calming your nerves.

Andrew Flintoff is clearly secure in his method, as is Matthew Hoggard. Steve Harmison clearly isn't. Whether he needs extra practice to sort his technique is arguable. That he needs extra practice to fight back the doubt, is surely undeniable.

Andrew Flintoff's ankle injury

England say that Andrew Flintoff has been experiencing 'discomfort' in his left ankle, but that it isn't a concern.

Well we're concerned. It's all well and good to say that he didn't bowl as a precaution, but he's supposed to be bowling. It's a Test match. It's a precaution when you're preserving something for a reason. A Test match IS the reason.

They also try and pass it of as being because of back-to-back Tests. You can't say that either. It's not some roll of the dice that's brought about that situation: The Tests are back-to-back. That's the way cricket is. You have to play according to those rules.

It's clearly time for a bionic ankle, anyway. We don't know why they didn't go ahead with this ages ago. They mucked about before they decided to invest in a bionic knee for Michael Vaughan as well. It shouldn't be that way. It should be: Ankle twinge - bionic ankle; neck twinge - bionic neck; back twinge - bionic back.

Bionics exists for a reason, you know. Mankind didn't create Robocop all those years ago so that England cricketers can just skive matches as they please. England: Heed the lessons of history and implement a policy of replacing body parts with bionic versions at the first sign of trouble.

Andrew Flintoff's batting

Does anyone currently expect Andrew Flintoff to get any runs? We get the impression that even Andrew Flintoff doesn't.

So far his scores this series have been 0, 16, 38 not out, 2, 13, 51 and 13. The 38 not out was a quick dash before the declaration and the 51 was when all hope had gone and England were about to lose the Ashes. He's basically achieved nothing.

This wouldn't be so bad if there were anyone else in the lower order who looked like making a run. As it is, England appear to be fielding six number 10 batsmen. (No-one's quite bad enough to be a number 11.)

We can't wait until something happens that'll make the site funny again. Imagine if Matthew Hayden retires. We'll be royally screwed then.

Andrew Flintoff the batsman

Andrew Flintoff hit 89 today. It was a lone hand as England's other batsmen perished like sticklebacks in outer space. Sticklebacks hate space.

This is Flintoff's first Ashes Down Under, so maybe we should cut him some slack. Just how many times has he actually batted on Australian pitches?

They say that it takes a while to get used to the extra bounce and all batting conditions require different approaches. Maybe Andrew Flintoff, England's captain, is finding his way during an Ashes series.

You'd rather hope that he wouldn't have to learn on the job, but those blink and you miss 'em warm ups won't have done the trick.

England win Down Under

England have won a game. They beat New Zealand. We love one-day cricket. It's bloody amazing, isn't it? We can't wait to see England lift the World Cup. We can barely remember the last time they lost a game.

James Anderson was 'the pick' of the bowlers. Operating in his role as 'the pick', Anderson took 4-42. Note for England's crack bowling strategist: Tell all of England's bowlers that they are 'the pick' of the bowling attack and then just sit back and reap the rewards. We should be a bowling coach.

Andrew Flintoff continued to prove that he isn't a complete spanner with the bat as well, scoring a match-winning 72 not out. All you'll read is that everyone wishes that England had gone to Australia in, like, August so that Flintoff's current form would have occurred during the Ashes. There's definitely a strong case against the tour itinerary, but we're a bit sick of hearing about it. At least he's in form now, that's our feeling. At least he's not a broken man, staring out of the window at the rain, wondering what the hell he's doing with his life. At least he's not worn down by guilt and unremitting pessimism.

New Zealand 205-9
England 206-7

Andrew Flintoff is captain again

Michael Vaughan's knacked (sic) his knee and Andrew Flintoff's captain again. "Just little bits of history repeating," as Shirley Bassey said in that song with the Propellerheads.

You don't hear much of the Propellerheads these days. Time was bands ending '-heads' were all the rage: Propellerheads, Bucketheads - er, that's it. I'm out.

5 - Andrew Flintoff

Fred’s going to be King Cricket one day. How can he not be? He plays for Lancashire. He plays for England. He bats like King Kong swatting flies. He bowls like a man who thinks he can propel the ball through the batsman and into the stumps if he tries a bit harder.

He’s got a big thick northern accent, but he’s obviously smarter than all of the South Africans put together – even if they got help from their mums. He’s really, really nice and when he went to console Brett Lee at the end of the nail-biting Edgbaston Test, we nearly cried. Then we remembered that we had two testicles and didn’t bother.