Eoin Morgan: how (and why) I play those amazing T20 shots
June 4, 2009 by Eoin Morgan
Filed under Featured Content, Features, ICC World Twenty20
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When I started at Middlesex I was a conventional player. But I began to feel I needed other options. Limited-overs cricket is pushing the game forward and scores of 300 in 50-over cricket are par now. You can’t afford to be bogged down and scoring at a run a ball is no longer acceptable. In Twenty20, especially, you have to go at eight or nine an over at least.
I went through a period where I was getting a bit tied down and, not being the size of someone like Graeme Hick, I was looking at other scoring opportunities rather than just hitting over the top. That’s when I started to practise these sweeps.
I don’t think I’ve ever played out a maiden in Twenty20 cricket.
I started playing the sweep shots about three years ago. I hadn’t played much limited-overs cricket until then and Twenty20, in particular, has given players a real spur to improve. I’ve practised the shots hard – as much as I would practise the cut or a pull – and while I started out only playing them against the slow bowlers, I’ll play them against anyone now. I play them in the championship, too.
I think I played the reverse sweep twice during my last championship hundred, against Leicestershire.
You do have to premeditate the strokes, but the idea is that they feel like second nature. I don’t feel any need to play them just because people know I can. That’s the whole point of practice; it becomes instinctive. I still hit most of my sixes over mid-wicket with flicks off the seamers.
It’s great to put some pressure on the bowler; to make them change their plans; to get them wondering where they’re going to bowl next. Sometimes I’ll play the shot just to get them to change the field.
Often they’ll move mid-wicket to protect them from the reverse sweep and that opens up a gap. I like it when you can hear the fielding side becoming irritated. Bowlers hate the sweeps, too: they just don’t know where to bowl. It does make it very hard to set a field.
“The grip for the reverse-reverse sweep is the same as the grip for hurling, which is a sport I played when I was young, so I feel very comfortable with it. I read recently that the physical skills you learn between the ages of nine and 12 are hugely influential and that’s the period
I was playing hurling. I think it gave me strong and flexible wrists and an instinctive sense that the ball could be hit in different areas.”
A full T20 masterclass from Eoin, complete with sequence photography, appears in the July issue of SPIN, in shops June 5. Eoin will be blogging for Spin throughout the ICC World T20.
Six things the ICC World T20 is going to tell us
June 4, 2009 by Duncan Steer
Filed under ICC World Twenty20, News
Have England finally got it right?
Let’s look at the stats: England have played 15 Twenty20 internationals. They’ve won six and lost nine. They’ve used 43 different players. (Forty-three!) Including eight wicket-keepers. At the first ICC World T20 in 2007, England beat Zimbabwe and lost to everyone else. Do the stats lie? Not really. Twenty20 is yet another game that England has given to the world before stepping aside and letting them give us a
good whacking. For a major team in any major sport to be sixth favourites – as England are – for a World Cup in their own country is pretty much unprecedented.
At least for this tournament England, belatedly, have the squad that the media and fans (and common sense) demanded. There’s four more new Twenty20 names in the squad for this tournament: Rob Key, James Foster, Graham Napier and Eoin Morgan, all of whom played at Twenty20 finals day last year. The crazy days of picking Alastair Cook and not Dimitri Mascarenhas have been quietly forgotten by the selectors.
There is an optimism about England’s latest fresh start but the thinking behind it is not so different to taking the T20 specialists Chris Schofield, James Kirtley and Darren Maddy to South Africa in 2007: there, England were not outclassed, but the new-look side lacked the experience as a team to deliver the killer punch when required.
Many players regard the secret of T20 as having a settled team, with each player familiar with his roles England, despite seeming to have settled, finally, on the 15 best individual players, don’t have that luxury. Then again if Graham Napier hits 152 off 58 balls in every game, maybe they won’t need it.
Has the IPL put India miles ahead of everyone else?
Kevin Pietersen thinks so. “India have taken the game to a new level,” he said in March. “Their scores in New Zealand were ridiculous. Compare that to how we played in New Zealand last year and they are on a different plane. We have got to do something.”
True enough: the theory is that the six-weeks-a-year of all-star T20 in the IPL has hot-housed India’s Twenty20 and one-day skills even since they took the inaugural title in 2007. India’s fielding, traditionally hopeless, has picked up; their bowling has more variety than ever, with at least four fast bowlers competing for spots alongside Harbhajan’s lethal mid-innings mystery spin. But it’s the batting that makes most opponents take a step back.
Racing to a 3-0 lead in the one-dayers in New Zealand, India scored at a phenomenal 7.58 runs an over, making their 5-0 hammering of England last November look like a gentle slap on the wrist. At Christchurch, they racked up 393/5 off 50 overs; at Hamilton, they knocked off 201 to win inside 24 overs.
The Hamilton win was fired by Virender Sehwag’s 125 off 74 balls. Was that innings more destructive than Yuvraj Singh’s 138 off 78 against England at Rajkot? Indian fans won’t care about the details: theirs is the team to beat in this tournament. Perhaps the most galling things for the opposition is that Tendulkar and Laxman, who would walk into anyone else’s side are again deemed surplus to requirements as MS Dhoni’s team defend their title.
Will it be as big a party as the first tournament in South Africa?
The 50-over ICC World Cup in the West Indies had gone on for seven weeks, with local supporters priced out of the stadiums and the cricket offering only sporadic peaks. Hopes of the first ICC World Twenty20 picking things up were not high: it had had a difficult birth; there was some dispute as to whether T20 should even be seen as an international format, particularly from India who had never held a domestic T20 tournament and initially declined the invitation to appear in the world event. When India did finally relent, they agreed to send what appeared to be a second-string team.
Then the tournament kicked off. And it was brilliant: a short, sharp two weeks, it passed in a blur of full-on cricket in front of near-capacity attendances thanks to an inspired £1-a-ticket, bring-your-own-picnic policy; Zimbabwe beat Australia and made us all laugh and India’s team of youngsters and unknowns absolutely stormed it.
The party atmosphere and the all-action cricket fed off each other and tournament director Steve Elworthy – the ex-South African fast bowler – was deemed to have saved the ICC from themselves. This was how an international tournament was meant to look and feel. The ECB snapped Elworthy up to repeat the trick in England. No pressure, then.
Why are Sri Lanka only fifth favourites?
Okay, they’re in the Group of Death: Group C – Australia, Sri Lanka and West Indies – the only one not to include a minnow. But surely Sri Lanka are the dark horses for this tournament? Lasith Malinga, fresh back from a long-term injury, was the top wicket taker at the halfway stage of the recent IPL, slinging down unplayable yorkers at 90-plus mph; and in Ajantha Mendis, the Sirils have world cricket’s next big star. Mendis’ weird, unplayable mix of medium pace off-spinners, leg spinners and his own ‘carom’ ball brought his 13 wickets at 11 runs each against India’s mighty batsmen last year and if Dhoni’s men eventually managed to half-work him out, the rest of the world has not yet had the chance.
The Sirils are still a mighty sharp fielding unit too and there are few stronger batting line-ups than the one led by Mahela Jayawardene, Sanath Jayasuriya and Kumar Sangakkara. Oh, and then they’ve got Murali, too.
Will it be a breakthrough for women’s cricket?
For the first time, a women’s World Cup is being played at the same time as the men’s. The first week of the women’s tournament will be played in Taunton, before the semi-finals and final are played as curtain-raisers to the men’s semi-finals and final, at Trent Bridge, The Oval and Lord’s.
While the England women’s World Cup triumph was well covered on TV in Australia – and shown on Sky in the UK – the attendance at the ground was just over 2000. Conversely, when England women played Australia as a curtain-raiser ahead of a 2008 CB Series game at the MCG, there were around 30,000 in the crowd. Months later, nine of the team were able to effectively turn professional, splitting their time between training and coaching on the Chance to shine scheme.
Showcasing the women’s game on the highest-profile stage of the men’s game in June is another giant step for the increasingly professional and ambitious women’s game.
Will the T20 sceptics come to the party?
The ECB’s bold new invention to revitalise cricket has taken off over the world. But Twenty20 is, even now, played against a certain background of scepticism from the self-appointed guardians of the game. (This while the MCC, the real guardians of the game, have got with the programme and are suggesting day-night floodlit Tests with pink balls).
The players get it and the kids get it: Twenty20 is a proper game that needs a lot of nerve, clever captaincy and a particular kind of skill. Maybe two-and-a-half weeks of watching Virender Sehwag trying to lamp Mitchell Johnson out of the park will finally persuade the sceptics to join the party.
Let’s concede one thing to the sceptics, though: the scheduling of this summer has been impossible. Then again: imagine the FA being told to stage the football World Cup during the domestic football season. There would be no clever answer. Well, that’s the task the ECB have had to take on. The West Indies series was a waste of time, but there’s simply too much event cricket to squeeze in this year: something has had to give and it would appear to be the Twenty20 Cup, the usual domestic centrepiece rushed through with little fanfare.
The imaginative, if not practical, solution might have been to axe the Pro40 a year earlier and play the domestic T20 in the second half of the summer. But then it would have clashed with the Ashes
For the anti-climactic feel of the early T20 Cup matches to be taken as evidence that the game is up for T20, rather than merely the one-off result of unfortunate fixture congestion, seems wishful thinking on the part of T20′s opponents.
Sir Allen Stanford and West Indies cricket – an inside story
First published in the April issue of SPIN magazine. Subscribe today and get a free copy of the Cricketers’ Who’s Who worth £18.99 (UK readers only)
A key member of the coaching team that helped the Stanford Superstars beat England in last November’s $20m challenge match has been speaking to SPIN about Sir Allen Stanford’s ill-fated involvement with West Indies cricket.
Julien Fountain, the side’s English fielding coach, believes the Stanford project had great benefits for West Indies cricket – and that the intensive training camp ahead of the 2020 for 20 challenge has had a lasting impact on the West Indies side, which went on to beat England in the recent Test series.
“The players realised what they are capable of if they do the right thing. They gained an awful lot from that environment and I think they’ve held on to some of the feelings. It was a very positive experience.
“The West Indies had had a pretty poor run of form leading up to the series, where we’d always come out second best. I think that everybody realised that this was an opportunity that we could really put West Indian cricket on the map and say, ‘We’re not quite as bad as you think we are’.”
The Stanford side won by ten wickets, having bowled out England for 99. “We did get the impression that the whole week – the whole competition – meant a bit more to us. We’d been through so much preparation, that I think everybody in our squad really realised that ‘Now is the time’.
“I think it showed that West Indies cricket can be successful, given the right environment, back-up and organisation.
“Afterwards, everybody was just stoked that we won the $20m game and that we didn’t just beat England, we absolutely crushed them. Winning the money didn’t register for a little while. It was just that we’d achieved what we wanted to achieve.”
The ECB’s dealings with Stanford came to an end in February after the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused the billionaire financier of “a massive fraud.”
Stanford sponsored inter-island Twenty20 tournaments in the Caribbean in 2006 and 2008 and, briefly, funded four professional island teams. His deal with the ECB was to have seen the annual $1m-a-man challenge match with England, plus an early season T20 quadrangular in England and a Stanford team in the new-look Twenty20 Cup. Stanford, who denies any wrongdoing, has now had his assets seized by the US authorities, as he stands accused of an $8bn fraud.
Fountain, now working with the Ireland team in their World Cup qualifying campaign in South Africa, could not confirm how
many of the players had re-invested their $1m prize money with Stanford organisation – but thinks that at least one player had. While some players and coaches were written cheques, others had accounts opened for them in the Stanford International Bank, with the money deposited there.
“Sir Allen made a big thing about his financial advisers talking to us to ensure that the money was invested wisely,” says Fountain. “They were very keen for us to keep the money in house. The advice was very plausible. And you’re sat there in this luxurious bank: huge, beautiful tables, big flat screen TVs, big glass, chrome and leather. They said, ‘Listen, the market is really volatile and you don’t really want to invest in stocks and shares now. If you want a simple, safe thing, just open these accounts, we’ll pay you the interest and it’s as safe as houses’. They were offering rates of nearly eight per cent interest in these ‘safe’ accounts, even though most other banks were offering three per cent.
“One of the younger guys said, ‘I live with my mum. I’ve got no need to touch it, I’m just going to live off the interest, thanks very much’. Interest on a million dollars would have paid him about $80-90k a year. A huge annual wage for doing nothing, so he had no reason to touch it.”
Did the players have any inkling that there was anything untoward about the Stanford organisation? “Not at all. We found out when everybody else found out.” says Fountain. “It was such a positive event, so it’s such a shame it has gone horribly wrong. If all of his rhetoric had come to fruition, it would have provided so many great opportunities for young West Indian cricketers – and been such a shot in the arm for West Indies cricket.”
The Superstars squad featured several young semi-pro players who had never played for West Indies. The Stanford project gave players from smaller islands a shop window to progress their career and it’s the affect of the scandal on this aspect that Fountain finds most disappointing.
“Some of the new and young Stanford players tried to get county contracts this winter but got absolutely no feedback. You can understand that: one game doesn’t make a career. But they played out of their socks; hopefully that would have kicked on with more games for Stanford. It may have taken 12 months or 18 months but all the kids who were no-names would have risen to the top and got opportunities. Sadly now, you’re back to the old days which is unless you get selected for the West Indies, nobody wants to know you.”
First published in the April issue of SPIN magazine. Subscribe todayand get a free copy of the Cricketers’ Who’s Who worth £18.99 (UK readers only)
Five-wicket Onions puts England on top
May 8, 2009 by SPIN
Filed under Featured Content
England have not won a Test in four years at Lord’s. Their defeat in the opening game of the 2005 Ashes has been followed by six consecutive draws, thanks to a series of high-scoring games mixed with poor weather.
But with three days to play in the first Test the West Indies are, following on, still 186 runs behind, thanks to a sensational debut from Graham Onions.
The weather forecast is gloomy – but surely not so gloomy as to stop England kicking off the Ashes summer on a high.
Graham Onions’ debut didn’t start too well: he was out first ball when England batted and his first four overs went for 22. But then it all turned round for the Durham fast bowler, as he took the last five Windies wickets in 27 balls including three in one over and four in seven balls.
Those seven balls saw the end of Lendl Simmons, Jerome Taylor, Denesh Ramdin and Sulieman Benn and took West Indies from being down (117/5) to being very nearly all out (128/9).
Earlier, Graeme Swann had picked up the key wicket of Shiv Chanderpual, caught at slip first ball.
With West Indies all out for 152 in reply’s to England’s 377 (Bopara 143, Swann 63*), they followed on 225 runs behind and soon lost Chris Gayle (0) and Ronnie Sarwan (1), both to Anderson.
Why England must forget Michael Vaughan
May 7, 2009 by George Dobell
Filed under George Dobell
Perhaps it’s the British way. With an uncertain future in front of us, the tendency to look back upon a remarkable history is understandable.
But it’s funny how selective memories can be, isn’t it? And the clamour to bring back several members of the 2005 Ashes-winning side is particularly hard to understand. While that was a glorious chapter in English cricket history, it is often overlooked that is was largely the same team that were thrashed 5-0 in the Ashes of 2006-2007. Nine of the 11 who played in the first Test in Brisbane had played in the Ashes of 2005.
Yet the media continue to push the claims of those players, somehow forgetting to mention the months of mediocrity that have elapsed since that series.
For a start there is Simon Jones. Jones did, it is true, produce some impressive performances for Worcestershire last year. But he also managed just nine games and, between spells of bowling, limped painfully around the field. He is, at the time of writing, recovering from another knee operation and supposedly a few weeks from resuming bowling. But isn’t he always?
Then there’s Steve Harmison. Since the start of 2007, he has a Test bowling average of 40 and has been tried again and again in the hope that he will recover something he lost many months ago. For the record, he only took nine wickets in the final four Tests of that 2005 series.
How about Andrew Flintoff? He is often characterised as the saviour of England cricket but he hasn’t taken a five-wicket haul or scored a century since 2005. So why is he still seen as a match-winner?
And then there’s Michael Vaughan. Vaughan’s case for a recall is perhaps the most puzzling of all, seeing as it is based on performances that came nearly seven years ago. That and his friendship with influential people in the media.
It’s worth reflecting on Vaughan’s record. He has one score over 50 in his last eight Tests and, since June last year, averages just nine.
Ravi Bopara, by contrast, scored a century in his last Test. And was dropped.
Vaughan’s record from 2005 is interesting, too. Take out his one significant score from that series – 166 – and he averaged less than 18. Nor has Vaughan impressed in county cricket. He hasn’t scored a first-class century for Yorkshire for six years and, in that period, has averaged about 30. Ian Bell, by contrast, has scored 10 centuries and averaged 50. And Vaughan’s a poor fielder.
There’s plenty of talent out there. But unless the England selectors – and the media – embrace it, we’ll continue to limp along with a series of faded stars suffering from dodgy knees, hips and eyesight. Really, if most of that Ashes side of 2005 were racehorses, they’d have been put out to stud years ago. It’s time to move on.
KP: is he really like Sir Viv?
May 5, 2009 by SPIN
Filed under Features, Masterclass
Kevin Pietersen is routinely compared to Sir Vivian Richards, writes Gary Palmer. But what could England’s best batsman learn from Sir Viv? And why isn’t it a good idea for you to copy KP’s technique – unless you’re a batting genius?
Pietersen: looking to hit square
KP has a good eye, is good at improvising and is not afraid of risks. These are similarities he has with Viv Richards.
However, he could minimise risks more than he does at the moment by fine tuning his technique, broadening his scoring options and becoming more consistent.
His preferred scoring areas are square of the wicket on the leg side: higher-risk options, that involve playing across the line, with half a bat. Even when KP hits a ball through mid-on, it’s often a delivery he has dragged from off-stump by hitting across his front pad and the line of the ball. This makes him vulnerable to being bowled or trapped leg before.
KP’s initial trigger movement causes his backswing to go back over leg stump. From that position, it’s difficult to hit the ball towards mid-off and straight extra cover. These are two safe scoring areas where he could hit the ball more consistently, with a minimum risk of getting out.
To hit the ball in the ‘V’, you must swing the bat in a straight line from the top of your backswing through to target area with a full blade of the bat. If you do this, you can hit length balls along the ground (or for six) more consistently; risks are minimal.
Because KP looks to score square, he tips to the offside. Then, when the ball is straight, he ends up around his front pad, playing with ‘half a bat’ and limiting his options to play straight.
This inhibits him, especially when he is occupying the crease or trying to milk the bowling – especially the spinners.
Sir Viv: a better defence than Boycott
Richards batted at 3 and had the perfect technique: he was well balanced, well aligned and his finishing positions were excellent. I had the privilege of seeing him up close when we played together at Somerset. When he wanted to improvise there was nobody better. His flair was allied to a sound basic technique. Even when he hit a straight ball through mid–wicket, Viv did it by swinging the bat in a straight line towards the ball, with a high leading elbow. All he did was to close the face on impact with the ball, which is a low risk shot.
Viv could destroy top-quality bowling. But he also had a defence as good as
Geoff Boycott’s and was a master of milking the bowling with a minimum risk
of getting out. He used the full face of the bat and looked to score down the ground when possible: Viv’s preferred scoring option to half volleys and good length balls was down the ground. He would rather hit down the ground over a fielder’s head for six, with the full face of the bat, than aim at a leg side gap with half a bat. KP generally prefers the latter.
How KP could be more like Sir Viv
KP could become more consistent and versatile if his preferred scoring options were straighter down the ground. Ways in which he could adapt his technique include:
• Work on his initial trigger movement. This sees him tip slightly to the off-side. He also moves too early and ends up static before the ball is bowled. KP could try moving back and across in the instant before the ball is bowled,. His back foot should land outside the line of his head, which stays still. This trigger would open him up, thus giving him access to hit in the V. He could delay planting his front foot until he had slighted the line of the ball. This would allow him to align himself to the various lines of delivery so the bat could swing in a straight line through the target area, with a full blade. This would reduce his vulnerability to being bowled or caught lbw.
• The alignment of his feet and shoulders needs to improve so, when he plays a straight drive, his front foot is not across the line of his back foot. It’s better if his feet are in line, so the bat can swing in a straight line to the ball with the full face for the maximum amount of time. This lengthens his hitting zone and puts him in a great position to improvise.
• He could stand with his shoulders slightly more open, so his head is pointing up the wicket and directly above his body – thus improving his feet alignment. This will also help him pick the bat up over off stump more consistently, rather than over the leg as he does now.
l When playing left-arm spinners, with the ball pitching on leg stump, KP could plant his feet inside the line of the delivery with both feet pointing straight up the wicket. This way, he can let the ball turn and arrive in line with his head and body, making him well aligned to hit over mid-on on the up with the full blade of the bat or to hit the ball over midwicket. Currently, he tends to put his left-foot out wide towards the legside and then plays away from his body after the ball has turned away from him.
Conclusion
KP works at his game, though he is reluctant to tamper with his basic instincts or technique. But being England’s best player does not mean he can’t improve. World class performers are constantly fine-tuning and KP could be even better if he took a few leaves out of Sir Viv’s book.
These are small changes for a player of KP’s ability and would allow him to bat successfully at No 3; where all the best attacking players in the world bat. He could score big hundreds more consistently and be even more of an asset than he already is.
Gary Palmer has been batting coach to many county and international players and has helped a series of young players win county contracts. For info on courses and one-to-one coaching: ccmacademy.co.uk
Flintoff returns from IPL, faces knee op
April 24, 2009 by Duncan Steer
Filed under Featured Content, News
England talisman Andrew Flintoff is to undergo knee surgery that will put him out of the game for up to five weeks.
Flintoff returned from the Indian Premier League today (Friday) to undergo surgery on a torn meniscus in his right knee.
Flintoff had been appearing for Chennai Super KIngs in the IPL when he felt discomfort in his right knee. The Chennai medical staff immediately contacted ECB Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Peirce.
Scans were taken of the right knee in a Durban hospital and they detected a slight medial meniscal tear in the knee and after these scans were viewed by Nick Peirce, radiologists the surgeon it was decided that Flintoff should return to London.
Flintoff, whose career has been interrupted by four ankle operations and one for a hernia already, will undergo an operation early next week. Surgeons are confident that he should recover from the keyhole surgery within three to five weeks.
Flintoff’s participation in the IPL, ahead of England’s busy summer schedule, was the subject of some controversy. However, Peirce said that the injury was not the result of anything that had happened during Flintoff’s three games in South Africa: “This sort of degenerative injury though is one that could have happened at any time any where.”
Hugh Morris, England Cricket Managing Director, added: “Andrew has been extremely unlucky with injuries but if there is one saving grace it is that the injury has occured now rather than on the eve of either the ICC World Twenty20 or the npower Ashes.
“Having the surgery now means that Flintoff should be available for both those events although he is certain to miss the npower Test series against the West Indies.”
England announce their team for the first Test v the West Indies, next Wednesday.
If Flintoff returns to action in five weeks’ time, it will give him precisely seven days’ grace before the start of the ICC World Twenty20.
Flintoff hat-trick seals ODI series win
April 3, 2009 by Duncan Steer
Filed under News
A hat-trick from Andrew Flintoff clinched the final one-dayer against the West Indies in St Lucia, as England ran out 3-2 series winners.
The 26-run win brought to an end England’s worst run in a decade.
Remarkably, it was the first time England had ever won a one-day series in the Caribbean.
With the West Indies needing an improbable 38 runs from the last three overs of a rain-reduced 29-over game, Flintoff removed Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul and Sulieman Benn to put the game beyond reach.
It was death bowling at its best: fast, full and straight; virtually unplayable in-swinging yorkers. Ramdin was bowled as he shuffled across his crease; Rampaul was hit full on the knee and given leg-before, despite Flintoff not appealing; Benn was bowled, stepping away to leg.
Flintoff finished with 5/19 off his five overs, his best-ever ODI bowling.
He became the third Englishman to take an ODI hat-trick (the other two, Steve Harmison and James Anderson, were also on the field today).
So England’s hapless winter that had seen humiliations from the Stanford Superstars, India, and the West Indies ended on a high note for Andrew Strauss’ team.
The game appeared to be in the balance after the controversial dismissal of Kevin Pietersen earlier in the afternoon. KP, well set after an even-time 48, was adjudged caught by Darren Sammy at point. But replays suggested the ball had bounced and that Sammy should have been well aware of his ‘mistake’ in claiming the catch.
As so often, England lost their way after Pietersen’s dismissal: Ravi Bopara (44) gifted his wicket, hoofing a short ball from Kieron Pollard straight up in the air; and Shah and Flintoff fell cheaply, before Collingwood (35 not out) and Prior (25 not out ) nursed them through to a still-below-par target of 172/5.
James Anderson removed danger man Chris Gayle, caught at slip by Flintoff off the third ball of the innings, to give the tourists the initiative before Collingwood (1/24 off four, including the wicket of Chanderpaul) and Mascarenhas (0/16 off four) applied the brakes on the Windies chase.
But the headlines belonged to Flintoff.
The turning-point of the series, however, was Windies coach John Dyson’s calling his players off incorrectly in the first ODI in Guyana, having misread his Duckworth-Lewis chart.
That mistake gifted the down-and-out England with their first win in the 15th international game of a disastrous winter.
Without it, West Indies would very possibly have wrapped up the series 3-0 after the first three games, before Flintoff had even returned from injury.
“It’s been a long hard tour and to come out of it with something is special,” said England captain Andrew Strauss afterwards. “We’ve worked really hard so not to get the results has been frustrating. It has been a tough tour. It’s frustrating to keep banging your head against a brick wall and not getting what you want.
“This one-day victory is something we can really build on. This game is all about momentum and given that we lost the Test series this one-day series win is very very important to us.”
Strauss, who before his elevation to the captaincy ahead of this series, had not played an ODI since the 2007 World Cup, picked up the man of the series award. He hit 204 runs at an average of 51, including a century in the defeat in the second ODI at Guyana.
Paying tribute to the man-of-the-match Flintoff, Strauss added: “That’s why he’s one of the best bowlers in the world – because he can deliver under pressure.”
