Hare Freddie, hare hare

Andrew Flintoff is in preparation for the longest and hardest test of his career, when the Mumbai showdown gets underway tomorrow morning. And Simon Barnes, writing in the Times, sees in our Freddie some of the essential heroism that has traditionally found favour in the subcontinent.

The poet of the Ramayana would have written verse after verse about the woes that have befallen Flintoff’s army. Four key players from the great Ashes XI were missing from the start and now Stephen Harmison, one of the most frightening bowlers on the planet, is crocked and will not play in the third and final Test, starting tomorrow. Basil Fawlty, not schooled in the Hindu way of acceptance, would have howled: “Thank you God! Thank you so bloody much!” But Flintoff, being a man cast in heroic mould, has taken this on as one more hardship to bear, one more disadvantage to overcome.