Handle Freddie with care
Andrew Flintoff's return to Test cricket from injury should be handled with care and importantly, shouldn't be used as a strike bowler straightaway, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph .
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
Andrew Flintoff's return to Test cricket from injury should be handled with care and importantly, shouldn't be used as a strike bowler straightaway, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.
Becoming a strike bowler is not something a player can just wake up one morning and decide to do. It requires a nose for wickets, a sharp mind with an even sharper bouncer, and a swagger that falls, usually, to those who take the new ball. Flintoff possesses most of these attributes except taking the new ball, which, apart from the odd desperate foray in the last Ashes series, he has tended to leave to others.
In the same paper, Geoff Boycott feels England may have missed the trick by not selecting Steve Harmison for Headingley.
I would have added Steve Harmison to the squad. I have been critical of his attitude and his bowling in the past but he has gone back to county cricket, is bowling better and getting wickets. It was obvious during the first Test that on a flat pitch England lacked pace. After three days of bowling, our three fast-medium guys are knackered. If England bowl first at Headingley, they could be bowling five days out of eight. That is a tall order, let me tell you.
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo