KF on the Ashes (Part 5).

A final set of reflections on the 2009 Ashes by KF.

Did you get your tackety boots on and join in the assault on the hopeless Aussie skipper? Hopefully those partaking didn’t get blood on their ‘Wenger must go’ t-shirts (circa April 2009). Great past achievements and a high likelihood of future glory (it took Ponting a few short weeks to slaughter England in the 1-dayers and win the ICC Trophy), are no buffer against populist braying. If Bradman and Grace were Ashes captains going head to head, they couldn’t both win. It wouldn’t mean one was godlike and the other needed dropped in the harbour with concrete slippers. However, if I was in Ponting’s position now, I suspect I’d be passing on the captaincy before the next but one Ashes back on these shores. Losing it once could be put down to bad luck. Losing it twice is very careless. Losing it for a third time would cast a permanent shadow over 5-0 Ashes wins and world cup triumph’s.

Sir Ian Botham had to slave away for a whole test match and also borrow an 8-for from Bob Willis to claim an Ashes Test to himself in 1981 at Headingley. Flintoff, even more economical than Botham with his movement, managed to claim his own glory in the decisive last Match of the series this time with one short burst of effort. I don’t recall ever seeing a batsman look so determined to stay in and so hellbent on winning a Test Match single-handedly than Ponting was in the crucial 2nd innings in the final test. I couldn’t see how England were going to get him out. He looked as invincible as Charlie does against Fauldhouse on a ploughed track. Then, with a bit of a wibble-wobble towards the ball, down stooped Sir Freddie on his disintegrating knees and the rest, as they say, is history. One for my new 100 Great Sporting Moments series. Great theatre, and all the more improbable that it was an Englander doing it to the Aussies and not the other way round.

Usually if a team wins a series you can look at the top run scorer or highest wicket taker and say that their efforts were the difference. But Australia dominated all the usual individual performance charts and still came up short. A lot of this was to do with England relying less on main men, with the likes of Flintoff & Pietersen not being fully fit and Bopara’s form being almost unsettling. While Australia as the touring side with less bodies to choose from maybe stuck with who they had a bit too much. I’m sure anyone who viewed Australia play Scotland at the Grange will wonder why Brett Lee played no part in the Ashes. Without him, can anyone argue Australia are at full strength? Seemed a pretty strange one.

And so, off into the sun (Dubai I believe) goes the new Botham. Legs now useless as far as international sport is concerned. Legs so criminally treated, allowing even more destruction and injury to already toiling joints. I’ve probably said enough on the bewildering and desperate treatment of Flintoff’s injuries in the past. So we move on and what do we ‘discover’ at the end of the Ashes. Woopeedoo, we have a ‘New Flintoff’. Read all about the injuries and injections cutting Stuart Broad’s career short here in about 7 years time.