Self-indulgence and prayer

It may cause my girlfriend to look at me with a mixture of bemusement and pity; it may cause a lot of people in Russia to smile and nod when I start talking about it. It may even have caused the father of the bride to provide guests with a score update before delivering his speech at my friends Zoë and David’s wedding. Despite all that, cricket fans’ obsession with the final Ashes test at the Oval is entirely justified. Okay, maybe not entirely justified, but at least understandable.

This series certainly hasn’t been a repeat of the 2005 Ashes that was hyped in the papers on the Internet and by people like myself on TV. It was going to be a fairly big ask to expect the same level of constant excitement as that series four years ago. The weather hasn’t helped for one. Nor has the retirement of some of Australia’s legendary players of the past 10 years.

Langer, Hayden, McGrath, Gilchrist and above all Warne weren’t just top cricketers -- they also created an air of the unbeatable around them through their Terminator-esque ability to transcend normal human endeavor on a cricket field. No matter what an England team did against any other test nation, there was always someone who would pipe up with “Yeah, but could we do that against the Aussies?” The Ashes has always been the litmus test for English cricket. In 2005 it did good, in 2006/07 down under it was wholly woeful with Australia whitewashing England five nil. This series certainly never looked like it was going to be a whitewash or the type of titanic duel that we saw in 2005; however, it certainly has been entertaining in its own right.

That entertainment is summed up no better than the prelude to the final test. Never has one man’s knee drawn so many column inches as that of Andrew Flintoff -- Freddie, the quintessential North of England all rounder, the only true heir to that crown that once belonged to Sir Ian Botham, off-field antics included. His heroics in the win at Lord’s and subsequent absence through injury from the team that was squashed at Headingly has drawn some to say that England can’t win without him. If this test series is to be remembered it will be as Flintoff’s last. The Lancashire all rounder will retire from test cricket after the Oval, as his body says no more to the crushing demands of the five-day game.

With the series tied, it’s winner takes all in Freddie’s last hurrah as a test cricketer. I know I am supposed to provide a fair, balanced and contemporaneous report as a journalist, however this week SportScene is making no attempt to be balanced when it comes to the cricket. So I ask any of you readers with even the slightest of leanings toward the England Cricket team to join the “Technology Bites” blog and I in a prayer from the first book of Dollard:

Our Freddie who’s still a bit injured,
Come and save our game.
The Oval come,
We’ll need some runs,
You'll score a ton at seven.
Give us this day our Fiery Fred,
And forgive Bell his swishing misses
As we forgive Clarke his fifties against us.
Lead us not to Ashes defeat
And deliver us from Ponting.
For thine are the beers, the boundaries and wickets,
For ever and ever
Our Fred.