The Flintoff phenomenon

Michael Henderson talks to the sporting hero who is set to lift England’s hearts at the Oval

‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!’ But when it comes, as it has this summer, what joys fly upon its wings. As the fifth and final cricket Test against Australia takes place at the Oval this weekend, the whole kingdom, it seems, is one with Shelley. Should England, who are 2–1 to the good, win or draw, they will regain the Ashes, the little urn that symbolises the longest-running rivalry in international sport, and banish 16 years of humiliation.

Since Australia won the first Test at Lord’s by 239 runs, to confirm the master-servant relationship they have come to take for granted, England have hit back with a ferocity that has startled the tourists, winning the Tests at Birmingham and Nottingham, and coming within a wicket of success in Manchester on a day when 20,000 people were turned away from Old Trafford. That was the day when the non-committed, not just cricket-lovers, realised that this series was one in a hundred. Since then the old bat-and-ball game has been the talk of the nation.

As Michael Vaughan, England’s excellent captain, is fond of reminding questioners, it has been a communal effort. But one man has come to represent England’s rising fortunes. Two months ago Andrew Flintoff, the 27-year-old Lancashire all-rounder, had never bowled or faced a ball against the Australians, who in the course of winning eight successive series against England had grown tired of hearing how ‘next time’ the sides meet it will somehow be different. They are wiser now. Flintoff is not just the cheerful face of English cricket, and a clear favourite to win the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award, but possibly the most popular man in England. In Vaughan’s estimation, he has become ‘a sporting hero’.