England vs. South Africa Cricket: What Was Flintoff Doing?

The score was 230 for 8. Flintoff had hit 10 off the over so far. Ntini looks to have nothing special to offer. Flintoff needs to push England’s total up as high as possible after yet another abject display from every one bar Cook and Bell.

Anderson has just come in off the back of a very good innings, showing that he can stick around and dig in when needed: this is one of those times. His mission: to stay in and protect his end whilst Flintoff gets boundaries.

WHY PUSH FOR A VERY RISKY QUICK SINGLE AT THAT MOMENT??

They had enough runs that over not to do anything silly or unnecessary. There was plenty of time left in the day to get runs. There would have been other balls for Flintoff to put away risk free.

Why be so desperate to get the non-batter on strike, for just a single, when it’s obvious that Flintoff has to be the one to get the runs?

Anderson has shown through his career that he isn’t the type of batter to charge the wicket and get boundaries with powerful, clean hitting. He is a grafter who stays in and protects his wicket and when comfortable, tries a few shots along the ground.

Mainly he is a singles man, supporting a run scorer.

Even if Anderson shouted for the run, send him back—the junior batsman does what he’s told. Never mind though, it’s only one wicket. There’s still time for some more runs.

Next ball, Panesar’s in. His first ball he hits well and sets off for a single. They end up trying for a second. WHY??

If Flintoff didn’t want him on strike for the next over, why run at all? What are singles when he is more than capable of hitting non-express pace bowling for boundaries? There were never two runs anyway with their slow-ish running. WHY RUN TWO???

Getting as many runs as possible makes a lot of sense when you’re down to the last wicket, when one good ball, or little mistake, means the end of the innings. But when Anderson was in, a little bit of patience could have gone a long way.

Running between the wickets is down to both batters at the crease. But the senior batter is in charge. He sets the tactics. He decides before the actual running who to get on strike and whether or not to take runs to protect the untalented batters or to get them on strike if he feels they’re capable.

If he wanted Panesar at that end, he should have decided before the bowler ran up not to run unless there were an easy two.

All in all, it was a brainless end to a bad innings. Admittedly the batters are once more to blame for the overall low score, but the lower order—especially Flintoff—has to take some responsibility for pushing the total as high as possible. This they didn’t do.