Oval, August 21: Some of the greatest fights take a little time to build, there are rounds not so easy to score and then there is the moment when one of the combatants decides to raise the pace – and the stakes.
But he is obliged not to overreach himself. He has to get it right because, if he doesn’t, suddenly the balance of power and confidence has shifted quite dramatically – and maybe decisively.
Unfortunately, the hero of all England, Andrew Flintoff, didn’t get it right in the soft late afternoon sunshine and when he went, the victim of a suddenly rampant Mitchell Johnson and the nonchalance of his own shot, his team were again against the ropes. Flintoff, we know, is a champion, but his sense of the team and its needs is not always paramount and here something rather different was expected from him than a 22-minute, 19-ball cameo which gleaned just seven runs.
–Agencies