Flintoff not dicking around

"I've had a dicky ankle and a dicky knee, but that's behind me now, so I can concentrate on playing some cricket instead of being a professional rehabber." Thats Andrew Flintoff keeping it simple ahead of the Ashes. He spoke to the Guardian's Laura Barton.

If there is anything anyone does have on Flintoff, he would prefer not to know. "I don't read the paper every day or worry about what anyone's saying," he says. It is a tactic he has developed over the years, initially as a way of dealing with the constant speculation over his weight and his injuries, and then as a method of blocking out the commotion over the Ashes win.

In the Times Shane Warne writes that Graeme Swann is about to learn if he can live with great expectations.

Swann’s character could really get under the skin of the Australians and if I was the England captain, I would give him full licence to be himself. He isn’t to everyone’s taste. If he is dictating terms, he will have a strut about him and that arrogance and cockiness will be obvious. In that state, he could disrupt Australia’s rhythm.

Graham Onions has featured in selectorial thoughts for years, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent, but only recently has he lived up to his evident potential. Onions has enjoyed a fine season, the highlight of which came with his five-wicket bag on Test debut, and he is the man of the moment. But is he a certainty for Cardiff?

And the last of the summer whine blog has a hilarious 'moving tribute' to the recently retired Michael Vaughan.