Andrew Flintoff bade a fond farewell to Test cricket after England’s glorious Ashes win at the Oval, and challenged his team-mates to build on their success over the Australians to become one of the great England sides.
“If there's any lesson to learn from 2005 now, it’s to go for domination [and] try to get to number one in the world," said Flintoff. “We've got the talent… it’s just a case of believing it and putting it into practice.”
England now face two Twenty20 and seven one-day matches against the Australians, beginning with the first T20 day-nighter at Old Trafford on August 30. There may be no little urn at stake in this limited-overs aftershow party, but restoration of Aussie pride will most certainly be, and England will be without Freddie as he heads off for knee surgery that will keep him off the cricket pitch for nine months.
So, who can fill the England talisman’s shoes with a Test series in South Africa just around the corner? All-rounder Adil Rashid of Yorkshire could stake a claim. The 21-year-old has barely dipped a toe in the water at international level with just four T20 outings, but a first-class batting average of 36.75 and 171 wickets in his 53 first-class matches to date speak for themselves. Ravi Bopara was dropped after disappointing Ashes showings, but then made 201 with the bat for Essex at Colchester as his England colleagues were pasting the Aussies at the Oval.
As England’s selectors collectively scratch their heads, we profile three other figures who can replace Freddie as chief headline-maker in the coming weeks.
Stuart Broad
Flintoff may have run the Australian batsmen ragged at times in this series, but the star of the show at the Oval – Flintoff’s long-range runout of Ponting by direct hit notwithstanding – was Leicestershire all-rounder Broad. In 2007, Broad was hit for six sixes in one over by India’s Yuvraj Singh – but two years is a long time in cricket. At In England’s terrible innings defeat in the fourth Test at Headingley, Broad took a career-best six wickets for 91 runs. He also made 66 runs in the second innings, batting at number seven. At one point at the Oval, Broad had five wickets for just 17 runs in Australia’s historic collapse on the morning of day two, when eight wickets fell for just 72 runs. At a towering 6ft 5in (186cm), Broad is tall even for a cricketer, and he can use that to his advantage when it comes to pace. But he can also mix up his pace effectively – it was his slower deliveries that triggered Australia’s collapse at the Oval. At just 23 years old, and with 22 Tests already under his belt, the future is bright for Broad.
Jonathan Trott
Or as he was known a week or two ago, “Jonathan Who?” A make-or-break Ashes Test is not the easiest of places to debut, even in front of a capacity English crowd, but the Warwickshire batsman, a relative latecomer to Test cricket at 28 years of age, rose to the occasion, top-scoring in England’s second innings with 119 and helping set Australia a record-breaking total of 546 to chase down for victory. And taking a brilliant catch to dismiss Michael Clarke also underlined his impressive fielding credentials. Though not an all-rounder, in 2003 Trott took seven for 39 in a match against Kent, his first season in first-class cricket where he also scored a century on his debut. He is also distantly related to former Australian batsman Albert Trott…
Kevin Pietersen
OK, he is a massive England star already, but having missed most of the Ashes this time, and with his native South Africa as the next Test opponents, KP will be out to answer his critics. Apart from scoring the historic 158 runs that helped win the 2005 Ashes – his maiden century in his first year of Test cricket – Pietersen averages 49.97 in Tests, a real achievement considering the outrageous risks the right-hander takes with the bat, including a left-handed reverse sweep shot ‘pioneered’ against the Sri Lankans in 2006, which left Test cricket’s record wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan unimpressed, and a number of the game’s experts questioning the shot’s legality. Though not famed for his bowling, Pietersen occasionally steps into the breech, and has four England wickets to his name. After a short stint as captain that ended in acrimony at the beginning of 2009, things are certainly never dull when KP is around.
England v Australia ODI schedule
1st T20 – Old Trafford, Manchester (Aug 30)
2nd T20 – Old Trafford, Manchester (Sep 1)
1st ODI – The Oval, London (Sep 4)
2nd ODI – Lord’s, London (Sep 6)
3rd ODI – The Rose Bowl, Southampton (Sep 9)
4th ODI – Lord’s, London (Sep 12)
5th ODI – Trent Bridge, Notingham (Sep 15)
6th ODI – Trent Bridge, Notingham (Sep 17)
7th ODI – The Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street (Sep 20)
Add a comment
Comments