Will Flintoff answer the higher call?

The decision to play the fourth Test at Headingley is ultimately Andrew Flintoff's but it's among the toughest he's had to face in his career and is central to the fate of the game, writes James Lawton in the Independent.

If Flintoff pushes back the odds, as he did at Lord's, and makes a match-winning contribution it will be an achievement of a dazzling order, something to put alongside the feats of the man with whom he has been compared for so much of his career, Sir Ian Botham. That is the tantalising prospect as the time of today's action draws near. But of course there is the other one, not tantalising but nightmarish – the possibility of Flintoff the hero becoming the passenger, the man whose dreams eventually, and perhaps inevitably, went beyond any reasonable prospect of further support from an overstretched body.

Flintoff, in an interview with John Westerby in the Times, says an Ashes win this year would mean far more for England than the one in 2005 and adds he is unlikely to take any risks with regards to playing the fourth Test if it threatens to prove detrimental in the long term.

“It crept up on us in 2005. We were on a roll, but looking back I think we were quite naive and didn’t really know what to expect. This time we’ve been preparing for it and it’s something I’ve been working towards. With all the injuries and having been hammered in Australia in the meantime, it would mean far more this time.”

Matthew Hayden, writing in the Independent, says Australia hold the momentum after their effort in Edgbaston and that the Ashes, if Flintoff doesn't play the fourth Test, are as good as gone from England's grasp.

This series is so close in terms of sessions, as I have written here before, but the indications are that Australia, because of their efforts towards the end at Edgbaston, still have the edge. Do not forget that in the shortened game the margins for error were heightened for both sides.

The truth is that the Aussies got out pretty easily with a draw. And the Anderson-Panesar effect may now come into play. Look what happened to England after they managed to deny Australia in Cardiff and now it is Australia who will gather momentum and confidence.
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It is perfectly simple for me: no Flintoff, no Ashes.

Michael Atherton, in the Times, writes that Flintoff's inclusion for the fourth Test, given the nature of his injury, would prove a gamble too far and the best option would be for him to make a farewell appearance at The Oval and be replaced by Steve Harmison at Headingley.

In the Daily Telegraph, Geoffrey Boycott is of the view that Flintoff's decision to play or opt out will affect the fortunes of Stuart Broad, who, he believes, is not up to the job.

Mike Selvey, in the Guardian, makes a case for the selection of all three newcomers to the squad - Ryan Sidebottom, Steve Harmison and Jonathan Trott - into the final XI for the fourth Test.

Also in the Guardian, Duncan Fletcher, while agreeing that Flintoff's best replacement remains Harmison, adds that the reputation Headingley as has acquired as a swing bowler's paradise can be misleading.