The most alarming sight on a cricket field in recent times was that of Andrew Flintoff, stripped to the waist, waving his England shirt about as a victory standard and generally doing a fine job of frightening the horses.
The occasion was a rare England victory on the subcontinent and while ”Freddie” Flintoff could be forgiven for his enthusiasm, the sight of his naked torso was the stuff of bad dreams.
Then again, for an England player to display such emotion was unusual enough in itself, and although the demonstration prompted murmurs of disapproval, his career has been held back rather more by injury than by disciplinary sanction.
A groin operation last August kept him out of England’s Ashes tour of Australia and a shoulder injury this year threatened to restrict his involvement in South Africa’s tour.
In between rehabilitations, however, he was one of the few England players to come out of the World Cup with credit.
Flintoff has re-emerged this season as a genuine all-rounder (in the one-day context anyway) and he may well be the man to disturb South Africans during the NatWest Triangular One-Day Series (assuming, of course, that he didn’t turn up lame for the match against Zimbabwe this week).
Flintoff has proved to be not only the fastest of England’s bowlers but also the most economical, plugging away in that off-stump channel so beloved of coaches and commentators.
England have pushed him up in the order, too, giving him more responsibility at number five in the hope that this will encourage more judicious hitting.
Flintoff is an imposing figure at 1,94m and still baby-faced.
He has struggled to bridge the gap between county and international cricket, and has had his run-ins with authority — most notably towards the end of last year when then-England cricket board chairman Lord McLaurin chastised him for not taking his recuperation from injury ”as seriously as he should have done”.
But he might be a man whose time is about to come. Certainly South Africa will have taken note of his form and he will have figured large in the team talks ahead of the tourists’ NatWest opener against England at The Oval this Saturday. The South Africans have had a quiet lead-in to the one-day series, not a bad thing in itself.
It is a team still in the process of finding itself and the performances in the early tour matches have been satisfactory rather than startling.
Boeta Dippenaar, originally omitted from the one-day squad, is perhaps the only batsman to have insisted on a place in this week’s starting XI.
It might be a mistake to discount Heath Streak’s Zimbabweans, but it is difficult to believe that this triangular will not be contested largely by England and South Africa, two teams both in the process of rebuilding themselves. South Africa’s challenges during this England tour have been well documented.
But chief among them is to break free of the past and build themselves a new identity, one which looks outwards rather than inwards.
Similarly, under Michael Vaughan, England have started to explore new options, at least as far as their one-day cricket is concerned.
Which is why Flintoff could be so important to England at this relatively early stage of the season.
If he bowls and bats well (attributes not necessarily found in other England all-rounders), he will offer Vaughan’s new-look team a bit of ”go-forward”, to borrow one of modern rugby’s ugliest phrases.
Cricket has always been able to accommodate players of all shapes and sizes (although, sadly, the days of the Richie Kaschulas now seem behind us, at least at the highest level).
Even so, there is still nothing quite like a huge, strapping bloke to give a team self-belief.
Flintoff is not England and England is not Flintoff, but he threatens to play a significant role for his team this summer and South Africa would do well to work out a method of subduing him sooner rather than later.