Flintoff recalls best, worst Aussie sledgers

He may have won over a legion of fans in Australia as a drawcard and a commentator in the KFC Big Bash League, but ex-England allrounder Andrew Flintoff has revealed he is no fan of the aggressive on-field verbal approach often adopted by his Ashes rivals.

Flintoff, who is currently promoting his latest book Second Innings, claims it was his imposing success in home Ashes series in 2005 and 2009 that effectively created his larger-than-life reputation but described some of the sledging initiated by Australian players as “just wrong”.

He specifically cited former captain Michael Clarke’s famous spray aimed at England’s arch provocateur James Anderson during the first Ashes Test of the 2013-14 series in Brisbane where Clarke warned his opponent to “get ready for a broken f…ng arm”.

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Flintoff, who will return to Network Ten’s BBL coverage as a commentator during the coming season, claimed his on-air partner Adam Gilchrist was one of the most effective “sledgers” he encountered along with former Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne.

“I am indebted to Australians,” Flintoff said in an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper. “Doing well against them changed my life. But some of the sledging is just wrong.

“What Michael Clarke said to Jimmy Anderson? Terrible, awful.

“‘I have said things in the past that I am embarrassed by, but they are so few that I remember them.

“Don’t get me wrong, the funny ones are good.

“Warne was good at it and Gilchrist was the best.

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“He never shut up but was never abusive, never personal. He just said enough to put people off.

“Glenn McGrath, bless him, was different. He used to get frustrated with himself and swear a lot.

“I loved playing the Aussies, always.”

Flintoff admitted that he had tried to verbally intimidate the late Phillip Hughes when the pair crossed paths during the 2009 Ashes series in England, which was the England allrounder’s Test farewell and the Australia opener’s first taste of Ashes cricket.

Even though Flintoff was sharing the new ball with Anderson in Hughes’s maiden Test of that tour at Lord’s, he did not have a chance to bowl at him in the first innings as the opener was dismissed in the third over.

However, in the second innings Hughes – who died almost 12 months ago after being struck in the neck while batting in a Sheffield Shield match at the SCG – evaded a couple of fiery short-pitched deliveries from Flintoff, who then followed up with a verbal volley.

“He (Hughes) came over with this massive reputation but I knew he was feisty so I bowled my first ball and followed it down,” Flintoff recalled.

“I said, ‘Hello, I’m Fred, nice to meet you. I am going to be all over you for the next six weeks’.

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“Next thing, he’s almost chasing after me down the pitch, shouting at me. That was proper feisty.

“But listen to the way people speak about him and that tells you everything. A lovely lad.”

Asked to spontaneously nominate his best combined Ashes XI of the past decade, Flintoff found room for six Australians including Gilchrist, Warne and allrounder Andrew Symonds, but did not include Anderson, Clarke, Stuart Broad or controversial former teammate Kevin Pietersen.

Flintoff’s XI (Matthew Hayden, Marcus Trescothick, Ricky Ponting, Michael Vaughan, Joe Root, Symonds, Gilchrist, Ben Stokes, Warne, McGrath, Steve Harmison) would be led by Vaughan even though he admits to a close rapport with another BBL commentator, Ponting.

“I love Ricky, but he had good players (during his tenure as skipper),” Flintoff explained of Ponting who captained against Flintoff in Australia’s 2006-07 Ashes whitewash triumph in Australia.

“Vaughany got the best out of me because he just let me be.”

Flintoff, who writes about his struggles with depression and alcohol in the latest book, also opted to include 2015 Ashes hero Stokes rather than himself in an allrounder’s role.

“I wouldn’t get in ahead of Ben Stokes,” he said. “I will be 12th man. I will organise the drinks. No alcohol, though. Just green tea.”

Flintoff also revealed details of the occasion he was run-out during a Test match due to the apparent after-effects of taking three Viagra tablets the previous evening, which he claimed severely impacted his capacity to move freely.

“It started with an article my ex sold to the News of the World (newspaper),” Flintoff recounted. “It wasn’t very complimentary about my ‘performance’, if you get my meaning.

“So I decided I had to put that myth to bed even though I was in the middle of a Test match.

“I took three Viagra one night and didn’t realise how long they lasted. Trying to bat the next day in that state was not easy.

“I was run out, simply because I couldn’t move. I could only hop. It wasn’t worth it, either. Complete waste of time.”

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Flintoff has included the anecdote in his one-man stage show that has been touring the UK in recent months but a check of his Test records show he was only dismissed ‘run-out’ once in his Test career, during a match against Sri Lanka at his home ground Old Trafford in 2002.

On that occasion, he was caught out of his ground when a firmly struck straight drive from his patting partner Alec Stewart was deflected on to the stumps at the non-striker’s end by Sri Lankan bowler Chaminda Vaas.

Given the England pair had completed an all-run three in Vaas’s previous over but Flintoff had managed just a single at the time of his dismissal, there is no hard evidence to corroborate the allrounder’s recollection.

Other than newspaper reports filed on the day that suggest, like any batsman run out in such unfortunate circumstances, that he had been the victim of ‘stiff luck’.

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