"Freddie" Flintoff

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Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff (born December 6, 1977, Preston, Lancashire) is an English cricketer and one of the best all-round cricketers in the world. He plays county cricket for Lancashire, where he picked up the nickname "Freddie" or "Fred" due to perceived similarities with Fred Flintstone. Flintoff is 1.93m (6'4") tall.

Flintoff was captain of the England Under-19 cricket team for their "Test" match tour to Pakistan in 1996/7 and at home against Zimbabwe in 1997. He made his Test match debut for the England cricket team in 1998 against South Africa.

In his early career, Flintoff was considered a raw but unfulfilled talent, attracting comparisons with Ian Botham often made (more in hope than expectation) by his country's tabloid press. He was often accused of a poor attitude to fitness (possibly because of this, his early career was hampered by a series of back problems) and poor concentration when batting, often getting out to ill-considered, overly aggressive shots. In response to this criticism, he paid much more attention to his fitness and remodelled his bowling action in 2001 and returned to the England team, proving an economical bowler and also scoring his maiden Test century in 2002.

By 2003, a newer, fitter Flintoff started to justify the comparisons with Botham. Up to the end of 2002, he had averaged just 19 with the bat and 47 with the ball; from 2003 to the end of the 2005 Ashes series, the corresponding figures were 43 and 28. In the summer of 2003 he scored a century and three fifties in the 5 test series against South Africa at home, and continued to excel on the tour of the West Indies in March and April 2004, taking five wickets in the test in Barbados, and scoring a century in Antigua. In early 2004 he was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year.

Although injury prevented him from bowling, he was called into the England squad for the 2004 Nat West One-day International Series against New Zealand and the West Indies as a specialist batsman, scoring two consecutive centuries in the series and hitting seven sixes in one innings.

He matched this haul in the Second Test against the West Indies at Edgbaston in July, hitting a first-class best figure of 167. Over the course of England's record-breaking summer, he hit a half-century in all seven victorious tests against New Zealand and the West Indies. On returning to the one-day game as an all-rounder in September he fell agonising short of a third one-day century, caught on 99 against India, though he hit went on to hit a further century in the ICC Champions Trophy pool match against Sri Lanka two weeks later. At the end of the season he was named as the inaugural winner of the ICC Award for one-day player of the year, and the Professional Cricketers' Association player of the year. He also became a father for the first time when his fiancée Rachael Wools gave birth to Holly on 16 September.

Following the test series in South Africa in December 2004 and January 2005, Flintoff flew home for surgery on his left ankle, leading to worries he may not regain fitness in time for The Ashes. In fact, following a rehabilitation programme of swimming and hill-walking, he recovered ahead of schedule and was able to return to action for Lancashire in April.

In the Second Test against Australia at Edgbaston in August 2005, he was made man of the match after he broke Ian Botham's 1981 record of six sixes in an Ashes Test Match with five in the first innings, and a further four in the second innings. In the same game he took a total of 7 wickets (across both innings) and managed all this despite a shoulder injury early in the second innings. England won the game by the narrowest of margins - just 2 runs. England captain Michael Vaughan subsequently dubbed the match "Fred's Test" in honour of Flintoff's achievement.

For his achievements throughout the 2005 Ashes series, which was won by England, he was named as "Man of the Series" by Australian coach, John Buchanan. His outstanding achievement also won him the inaugural Compton-Miller Medal. He was also awarded the Freedom of the City of Preston.

In September 2005 an extract Flintoff's autobiography, Being Freddie, was published in The Times. In it, he claimed that he had been shot at while fielding near the boundary in an ODI in New Delhi in 2002. Flintoff said, "I felt something hit me and, looking down, saw pellets on the ground. You expect to have plastic bottles thrown at you when you are playing on the sub-continent, but you don't expect to be shot." The Indian cricketing authorities rejected this version of events, with one official questioning why nothing was said at the time, and saying, "He can't be serious". New Delhi police also expressed surprise that the incident had been brought up three years later: "If there was any such thing at that time it would have been brought to our attention and action taken," Delhi police spokesman Ravi Pawar said.

Trivia

• Andrew's father Colin and brother Chris both played cricket, with Colin still playing.
• Andrew owns a couple of boxer dogs, he calls them Fred and Arnold.
• During his innings of 167 against the West Indies at Edgbaston in July 2004, one six off Jermaine Lawson was hit high into the Ryder Stand and was almost caught by his dad, who fumbled the ball and dropped it. Colin Flintoff remarked "If I'd taken it he'd have been the first Test batsman to be caught out by his dad!".
• The highest score of his career at any level is 232 not out for St Anne's (Under 15) Cricket Club against Fordham Broughton, he recalls that "it was a 20 -overs-a-side game, played on an artificial wicket, and I remember getting dropped when I'd scored just six. My opening partner David Fielding scored 60 not out and we got 319 for 0 in 20 overs. You don't forget days like that, whatever the standard you're playing in".