DavieCooper.com Editor’s Blog

It looks almost comical, like an ornament crafted in Lilliput. But seldom in the world of sport has something so little been so highly coveted by two old enemies. After 5 test matches and 22 days of gladiatorial jousting, Freddie Flintoff hoisted a minute and rather unimpressive looking terracotta urn above his head. England had won the Ashes.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been intermittently watching the Ashes saga unfold on television. I have learned that test cricket is an effective cure for insomnia (I can now throw my CD of whale sounds in the bin), and it is soothing background music when perusing the newspaper. Indeed, there’s something reassuring about the gentle thudding sound as the ball caresses the willow, the soft perpetual hum of the crowd, and the commentators’ sedate musings. For middle-aged men it shares all the cosy trappings of the maternal womb.

It may seem bizarre that a Scotsman could enjoy watching a sport that is as popular as Margaret Thatcher and Morris dancing in his native homeland. But during my childhood years I was friendly with a Pakistani boy who was cricket daft. He indoctrinated me into the strange world of googlies, cow corners and silly points. For a while I was hooked, and would dash home after school, throw on some tracky bottoms and scoot down to the local park to bowl a few wides. Life was simple back then.

Aside from misty-eyed nostalgia, the other big draw is Andrew Flintoff, a.k.a. Big Freddie - a bloke’s bloke.  He’s blessed with the navy drinking prowess of Oliver Reed, the natural cricketing ability of Sir Ian Botham, and the cheeky grin of a naughty schoolboy. He is the bad boy of English cricket - inheriting the title from Sir Beefy, who was the original beer swilling, curry-loving rebel. You can’t help but like the guy.

So it was fitting that one moment of Freddie inspired brilliance propelled England towards the finish line: Flintoff, virtually anonymous for the majority of the last test, suddenly burst into life, whipping the ball off the turf, then zinging it through the air to leave Ricky Pointing scrambling for safety - the stumps splayed, bails exploded upwards and the Australian captain trudged off the field crimson faced at having been run out. The Ashes were in the bag and Flintoff’s cameo snatched all the headlines. It was a fitting end to the 2009 Ashes and big Freddie’s test match career.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 11:25 am and is filed under Editor's blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.