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Levitating bats and shopping trolleys

The results of our latest caption competition featuring Andrew Flintoff

Will Luke
Will Luke
28-May-2006


Andrew Flintoff is bowled by a "Kwik" cricketer...but what were the winning captions? Find out below © Getty Images
First of all, it's pertinent to assure you that it was, in fact, Andrew Flintoff pictured in our latest caption competition. Many splendid entries were submitted, with an additional "but isn't that Shaun Pollock?" tagged onto the end. Granted, it didn't look much like Flintoff - but after sweating profusely at the thought of making a howler, our extensive research confirmed we were correct. With that out of the way, here's what you had to say.
Larry Guilfoyle from Queensland, Australia, was one of a handful to utter "call that a break-dance? Watch this moonwalk!" which was a fair start, but Larry lost out in the humour stakes to the prolific Jason Panagidis. Hailing from Johannesburg, Jason's took a different angle - "the Australian Under-12 team's sledging finally earned them a wicket - which had us guffawing and chortling.
The theme of levitating bats was also common among the hundreds who entered. "Despite the lessons Uri Geller had given him, Freddie's bat-levitation trick didn't impress the young cricketer," mused Simon Huntington from London. "Okay, so who super glued this bat to my fingers?" offered Henry Arculus, also from London.
With Asda sponsoring the event, it was inevitable that the pat of loose change in our pockets, and the corny "dink dink" theme tune of the world's biggest supermarket chain would course through our heads. And not just ours, but most of yours too. "Asda Mums bag Freddie's wicket!" joked Graham English from Ayrshire; "You can stick your Asda prices," shouted Chris Nield from Gloucester; and Luke showed no small amount of lateral thinking with "Asda kadabra, look what I can do with my magnetic fingers".
Good though the Asda puns were, we at Cricinfo are quite the wordsmiths and were rather taken with Garth Powell's effort: "Captain Flintoff out of his league as Kwikies tear through him". Had there been a single winner (and you're all winners, really), Jennifer Hanns from Southampton would have got it with her fabulously clever "I blame the bat - it's not got Woodworm." We liked that.
Jason Panagidis, though he scored many points for his prolificacy, narrowly missed out with his second curious entry: "Freddie Flintoff was shocked at how young the Irish one-day squad were." Very good, Jason.
However, one of our favourites came early on in the Test - when Kevin Pietersen was defying logic during his 142 - with Olly Nicholson, from Reading, sending us this: "Ashley Giles was once the wheelie bin but, after that middle-stumper Freddie, you're the shopping trolley."
Super effort, and thanks to all who entered. The prizes - the 2006 edition of The Cricketers' Who's Who - will be winging their way to Jennifer Hanns, Garth Powell and Olly Nicholson. We'll have another competition for the third and final Test against Sri Lanka on Friday.


Olly Nicholson: "Ashley Giles was once the wheelie bin but, after that middle-stumper Freddie, you're the shopping trolley"

Jennifer Hanns: "I blame the bat - it's not got Woodworm"

Garth Powell: "Captain Flintoff out of his league as Kwikies tear through him" © Getty Images

Will Luke is editorial assistant of Cricinfo