Flintoff's Bowling

[L Trumper]

Which means absolutely nothing.

Why does it mean absolutely nothing? Before that he is a 2nd change bowler or just a peripheral.

If lee did his attacking job that good why did he had career avg above 30? If lee in tests did his job, then lee in odis did the job of two lee's.

 

[Richard]

You are looking flintoff entire career as a bowler, which he is not. He started regular bowling since 2004 only.

Well, he started bowling regularly in 2001/02, but only in 2004 (arguably even 2005) did he start bowling truly well, and like the Flintoff everyone remembers.

Flintoff's career 1998-2000/01 is really utterly irrelevant, in Tests and ODIs. Only from 2001/02 onwards should his matches be considered.

 

[L Trumper]

But he is more of a second change bowler or a fifth bowling option then. Against SA 2003 he sometimes did first change duties, only since WI 2004 he can cement his place in team just as a bowler.

My mistake he did bowl as a first change bowler since 2002 season.

 

[Streetwise]

Why does it mean absolutely nothing? Before that he is a 2nd change bowler or just a peripheral.

If lee did his attacking job that good why did he had career avg above 30? If lee in tests did his job, then lee in odis did the job of two lee's.

Flintoff played 26 tests as a strike bowler, he did worse than Lee.

 

[L Trumper]

Flintoff played 26 tests as a strike bowler, he did worse than Lee.

26 tests?? which ones.. I thought only since strauss's captaincy he used as a new ball bowler, even then anderson is the guy who bowl full length attacking deliveries while flintoff bowl back of length balls.

But I am sure that lee is not as much a good test bowler you portrayed him to be but definitley one of a kind in odis though.

 

[Streetwise]

26 tests?? which ones.. I thought only since strauss's captaincy he used as a new ball bowler, even then anderson is the guy who bowl full length attacking deliveries while flintoff bowl back of length balls.

But I am sure that lee is not as much a good test bowler you portrayed him to be but definitley one of a kind in odis though.

Look at his stata on cricino, he has played 26 terst matches where he opens the bowling and averages 35.

 

[L Trumper]

Look at his stata on cricino, he has played 26 terst matches where he opens the bowling and averages 35.

He did open the bowling once in a while in Ind 01/02 , ind 06, nz 02 and against SL 02 etc. But mostly likely as a replacement in a single match or in some cases in one innings. By no means it should be taken as a genuine attacking bowling scenario.

 

[wfdu_ben91]

I was also at Lords that day and the number of times that Johnson played and missed to Flintoff during that spell....

Great logic though it must be said. might start using it more widely. Graham Onions never got out to any South African bowlers in the last series, clearly makes him a better player than all of them.

Yeah, Onions didn't once get out to Jacques Kallis. Therefore Onions > Kallis. Take it for what it's worth.

Okay, so you can't compare allrounders on how they perform against each other. Instead you go and pick how an allrounder goes against a number 11. Yeah, it is great logic isn't it.

I don't think any okay batsman can hit warne at his very best out of the park while others crumbling apart. And can play him sensibly to make a century curbing his natural instincts. To compare johnson's batting with flintoff right now is laughable. If he can repeat his performance against SA in couple more series then he may be near flintoff's level.
Every batsman at his worst are tailend-esque.
AS far as sharing bowling load? Really johnson has to carry aussie attack? for how long? 2 series? Flintoff is doing that for england since hoggard's poor form with absolute crap of an ankle not to mention odis where he is the only one that control runs and take wickets consistently.
In fact it can be argued that flintoff never bowl rubbish like MJ did in ashes will help lose ENG a series with his bowling.

An okay batsman can hit Warne out of the park. How many unknown IPL Indian have done it? No matter how great Warne is; he is a spinner, which makes him allot easier to hit for six then a pacer. Brett Lee has hit bowlers out of the park aswell. Mitchell Johnson was hitting Dale Steyn allover South Africa so I'm sure his better then an okay batsman aswell, yeah?

Flintoff averaged 31 with the bat in Test Cricket. Hardly mindblowing. Doesn't help Johnson's cause when he has to come out and slog quick runs after Australia's posted a massive score, which has been the catalyst for his averaging dropping as of late. Nearly all of Johnson's good scores have come in a crisis.

Flintoff's hardly played cricket for an extended period since the Ashes 05 - his been injured. It's not as if he was taking 8fers and scoring hundreds either 100s when he was playing either, tbh.

 

[Richard]

Okay, so you can't compare allrounders on how they perform against each other. Instead you go and pick how an allrounder goes against a number 11. Yeah, it is great logic isn't it.

You can't compare anyone on the basis of one match, or even one series. It's plain daft logic.

 

[Richard]

But he is more of a second change bowler or a fifth bowling option then. Against SA 2003 he sometimes did first change duties, only since WI 2004 he can cement his place in team just as a bowler.

My mistake he did bowl as a first change bowler since 2002 season.

I've never been tremendously bothered about when a bowler bowls - it's all about what figures he can return. If someone virtually never opens the bowling but still averages 24 then they're doing a damn good job.

Flintoff for the first year-and-a-bit of his proper Test career (ie, 2001/02-2003) was a bowler who mostly lacked the ability to attack but was still sometimes useful as a defensive option. To my mind he still to some extent lacked that ability 2003/04-2004/05, but he still picked-up good figures. From 2005-2006 he was a top-notch bowler who returned top-notch figures; from 2006/07-2009 he was a very good complimentary bowler who rarely got the figures he deserved but was still clearly the best bowler in his country's attack.

Either way the fact is Flintoff was far more successful 2003/04-2009 than Lee ever remotely was over a period of longer than a few months and a handful of Tests. That to my mind shows Flintoff was clearly the better Test bowler, and that's the end of the story.