[Richard]

Originally Posted by tooextracool

He never came close to being dropped from the England side though, it certainly wasnt even going through their minds. At the end of the day you choose from your options. No one expected Strauss to take the responsibility of captaincy as well as he did and play in the manner which he did, but after he did it should have been an easy choice to decide between the 2.

Not if the seeming better candidate was the 2nd appointment and only appointed ITFP due to injury.

Err much like Strauss was a stand in captain, Flintoff was too. Clearly neither captain was settled in stone. If you get injured and someone performs better than you did then you get replaced, we've seen plenty of players replace players that get injured, it happened with butcher and its not much difference with the captaincy.when someone is a injury hazard it makes that case even more favorable.

A clear feudal order had been established, and that would've been broken by giving Strauss the captaincy.

There was an obvious candidate in Strauss.

Obvious to you. There were many good judges (in other scenarios) making the case for Flintoff. It was not a straightforward choice and once it went wrong (which was inevitable) there was always going to be criticism.

Err bowling himself for 51 overs in the final inning(which incidentally was more than everyone else in the side)? especially when he had panesar at his disposal on the last day. It was a clear absence of logic

You've completely ignored my point. Had he bowled Panesar the game would still have been drawn because that amount of catches going down is always going to cost a victory whoever bowls.

Had the catches been taken there'd have been no criticism aimed his way for bowling himself lots. Indeed, it might've been praise instead.

As said earlier, there are mistakes and there are things which are out of this world stupid. Flintoff was about as wise as a retarded 2nd grader in that series. all captains make mistakes, but most make some good decisions as well, some like flintoff instead seem to try and enlarge their mistakes as far as possible.

So you reckon Strauss wouldn't have made any mistakes and\or wouldn't have been criticised for poor captaincy had he captained us to that 5-0 loss.

except that to any ordinary person vaughan did outwit ponting last summer and vaughan is quit clearly a superior captain that ponting and any aussie would admit it.

He's quite clearly a better captain but he didn't "outwit" him because there is no stage in cricket where captains' captaincy skills go head-to-head. Nor did Ponting captain anywhere near as poorly in England as most Brits claimed.

Im sorry what? What on earth is wrong with being man enough to admit that you are not good enough at a certain skill? Flintoff is a damn fine player, a brilliant bowler, a good captain and usually an excellent fielder and for him to think of himself as a failure because he couldnt excel as captain would be downright stupid. Ian Botham had no problems relinquishing the captaincy in 81 so it certainly disproves your last sentence completely. you could see for yourself that Flintoff was clearly sullen and completely out of it during that series as a result of the burden of captaincy(Certainly compared to the last ashes) and it was quite depressing just to have to watch him reduced to such a pitiable state. Flintoff had more than enough on his plate to worry about, his own form tailed and really he should have been focussing on the more important aspects of his own game rather than worrying about his 'best mate' steve harmison and the rest

Botham relinquished the captaincy because he would've been pushed had he not. And in any case, it has nothing to do with that because it was a home series. Many captains have resigned in the middle of a home series. Only Mike Denness has ever done so in an away one, and even that was just stepping-down for 1 Test.

How many times did Flintoff state, before and after being given the captaincy, that being England captain was to him the ultimate honour? What would that then say about and to him were he to relinquish it in the middle of a tour?

If he's man enough to admit that he can't do everything at the start of next summer and that he doesn't ever want the captaincy again, well, good for him, but the middle of a tour is no time for such a thing as far as I'm concerned.