| Andrew Flintoff was an England hero with a sense of chivalry | Mike Selvey The timing of his departure was crass but the all-rounder's part in Ashes folklore is undeniableThe manner in which Andrew Flintoff chose today to acknowledge a fitness battle lost even as the tightest County Championship for years was coming to its conclusion did him little credit. What abject, thoughtless timing, a slap in the face for the game that nurtured him and set him on the road to fame and considerable fortune.He and his advisers are sufficiently familiar with the machinations of many media desks which know little of county cricket and care even less, seeing only celebrity and names, to understand what would be placed top of the agenda. It is an uncharacteristic faux pas at odds with someone known for the generosity of his spirit.Raging against the dying of the light is what the top competitors do. The belief in their omnipotence, that injury is merely an obstacle to be overcome on an inevitable trip back to the mountain top is the thing that sustains them. They concede nothing, least of all to the passing of time. It is why anger creeps in at any suggestion of mortality. In truth, though, he has not now told us something that most would surely have recognised as inevitable once he went under the surgeon's knife again, a little more than a year ago and yet once more in the early summer.The stories of coming engagements with teams around the world were pipe-dreams: his management have been concentrating for some while on how best to handle his exit from the game and non‑cricketing future. In spite of this he has suffered through countless painful hours of rehab over the last 12 months, unstinting, conceding nothing, with an unquenchable desire to play cricket again not for the financial gain and glory of it any longer (he will not go short in cricket's Valhalla) but simply because that is what he loves doing. "It is not life-threatening," he remarked at the start of the week. "I've got a bad knee, that's all." But undeniably, a part of him will have died now.He was never one of the great all‑rounders, but a considerably better one than his statistics show superficially. He had the capacity to impact. He could take a game and tear it from the grasp of the opposition like no other contemporary in the England side. He was utterly indefatigable, never more so than in his heroic bowling at Lord's last year which won England the match and which perhaps precipitated his departure to the orthopedic operating theatre. When, in what was his last significant act for England, he ran out Ricky Ponting at The Oval last year, with a direct hit from mid‑off, it was a moment of inspiration. Only gifted players can produce such game-breakers on cue.Unquestionably, except in his own mind, he was a better bowler than batsman, a rampaging world-class fast bowler whose paltry three five-wicket hauls do not remotely do him justice. At times, perhaps, while physically menacing, and bowling the heaviest of balls, his direction of attack, which slanted in to right‑handers as his delivery arm went beyond the vertical, was not so disconcerting to the best players: the Australian batsman Michael Slater once confided how he found him comfortable to get away through midwicket on the angle. To left‑handers, though, he was a different proposition, not least from around the wicket when the ball was reverse swinging, a method in which he was bettered only by Glenn McGrath. His skill was in producing memorable spells, or overs, or even deliveries: the 50 overs he sent down against Sri Lanka because he felt he had to, and at what cost to himself; the legendary over at Edgbaston in 2005 when first he roasted Ponting and then dismissed him; the last gallant charge at Lord's.He was too cumbersome on his feet, and technically deficient to be a batsman of real quality, but once more he could change a game with his power. At his best he could bat at six and lend the side crucial balance, but he could not get the ugly runs when out of touch that top batsmen manage. Seven was ideal.Sport needs its heroes and Flintoff became that. Here was someone whose achievements were beyond reach of the aspirations of the public, yet who remained one of them. He batted as they would like to bat and bowled as they would want. He was personable, liked his ale, got into scrapes. When a young boy got bullied at school because he had said he knew Flintoff and wasn't believed, his hero turned up at the gates to pick him up.In an age when sportsmen are scrutinised and criticised for inappropriate behaviour, the nation warmed to the tales of his post-Ashes bender and the open-top bus ride, his shades hiding " a thousand stories". They laughed at the Fredalo incident in St Lucia, little more than a harmless jape in itself (he did not nearly drown and have to be rescued), but one which carried the can for the indiscretions of others. If the celebrations of his wickets became ever more theatrically choreographed (and he knows well enough the value of the publicity they generate) then he was irresistible. They admired his chivalry. Of all the images to come out of the 2005 series, it is that of Flintoff consoling Brett Lee at Edgbaston that is imprinted in the memory.How will he face the future? Time is on his hands now and the intensity of the rehab presumably will drop away. He is a social animal and will have to be careful. But he will be in great demand too, not as a TV pundit, of which there are plenty already and in which capacity he says he has no interest, but as a celebrity, a person of genuine charisma. Already Ladbrokes are offering odds on a pantomime appearance. There is no sportsperson around with whom corporate clients would rather spend a day or a dinner. He has his Andrew Flintoff Foundation to occupy him. He will not be kicking his heels.Andrew FlintoffEngland cricket teamCricketMike Selveyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Jets WR Edwards practices day after arrest By DENNIS WASZAK Jr. 2010-09-22T17:14:19ZFLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) -- Braylon Edwards is practicing with the New York Jets, a day after the star wide receiver was arrested for drunken driving.... hosted.ap.org |
Tancock and Halsall win gold in pool • Tancock wins 50m backstroke after Halsall's butterfly triumph• Robbie Renwick secures 200m freestyle gold for ScotlandAfter going a day and half without winning a single gold, England took two in three minutes. Fran Halsall was still shaking her hair loose from underneath her swimming cap after winning the 50m butterfly when her team-mate Liam Tancock blitzed the 50m backstroke.If you do not know them already, remember the names, because these two are swimming with the kind of conviction and confidence that should make them strong favourites come London 2012. At the Olympics, of course, they should also be in the same team as Scotland's Robbie Renwick, who swam superbly to take gold in the 200m freestyle by a mere two hundredths of a second.What made Tancock's and Halsall's wins all the more impressive was that in both cases those who took silver and bronze were Australian. "It was really, really nice to see an England flag at the top," joked Halsall, "and two Aussies underneath."Halsall won by just three hundredths of a second, pipping Marieke Guehrer – who had broken the Games record in the semi-finals – on the touch. Less than an hour later the 20-year-old from Southport was back in the pool for the semi-finals of the 100m freestyle, her strongest event. She obliterated the competition in that, too. She goes in the final tomorrow night.Halsall won silver in the 100m freestyle at the World Championships in 2009, and that gave her the confidence to kick on. At the Europeans in Budapest last August she won five medals, the best performance ever by a Briton at a championships. She could go one better here in Delhi, where she will be competing in six events if she is picked for the relays.She played down the possibility of beating her own record, however. "It's a very different situation here, what with the 45-minute bus trips to the pool and back, and I've got some 'Delhi belly' going on, but I don't want to be beaten in my main event, that's for sure."Always quick to laugh at herself, Halsall was disarmingly frank about the pills and powders she has been prescribed for her stomach upset – "it hurts" – but we will avoid repeating the details here.Tancock's win was more predictable. He is already world champion and the world-record holder in the 50m backstroke, and he broke his own Commonwealth Games record in winning by three-quarters of a body length. He had deliberately taken it easy in Monday's semi-final to spare himself for the relay later that night, so he was stuck out in lane seven for the final.Such is his self-belief, that the starting line-up did not bother him. "I don't care what lane I am in," he said. "If you've got a lane you've got a chance. Four years ago in Melbourne I won a silver after my [now retired] team-mate Matt Clay beat me to the gold. He sent me a text today telling me to go one better and smash it up." That is exactly what he did.Better in its way than both the gold medals was the bronze won in the 50m breaststroke by another Englishwoman, Kate Haywood, who has had a torrid time of it. After struggling to find her form through 2009 she was finally diagnosed as having a tear in a hip cartilage a week before the start of World Championships. She pulled out, had a course of major surgery, and was on crutches for six weeks."Quite a few people thought it was time I gave up," she recalled after her third-place finish, "and there were lots of thoughts in my mind about whether I wanted to carry on or give up. But with 2012 around the corner I wanted to be part of that, so through determination I have managed to come back and come back better."Rehabilitation has actually improved the 23-year-old's performance. "Usually my legs are my strongest area but because I wasn't able to use them, I just worked my upper body. I'm much stronger now, and that's the difference."Her aim for these Games stretched only as far as making the team, so she was as delighted as she was surprised.Commonwealth Games 2010SwimmingAndy Bullguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Hicks battling sale of Liverpool Club Tom Hicks this week said the chairman of his Liverpool Football Club was not authorized to sell the team, and a now-reconstituted board does not support the sale to Red Sox owner John Henry. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Alex Smith out for 49ers, Troy Smith in vs Broncos By MATTIAS KAREN 2010-10-27T14:44:20ZLONDON (AP) -- With quarterback Alex Smith ruled out because of a separated shoulder, San Francisco 49ers head coach Mike Singletary is gambling on Troy Smith being able to turn his struggling team around.... hosted.ap.org |