Andrew Flintoff

Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff (born 6 December 1977) is an English television and radio presenter, former international cricketer, and coach for the England cricket squad.

Flintoff played all forms of the game and was one of the sport's leading all-rounders, a fast bowler, middle-order batsman, and slip fielder.

He was consistently rated by the ICC as being among the top international all-rounders in both ODI and Test cricket.

Flintoff was captain of the England Under-19 team for their "Test" match tour to Pakistan in 1996/7 and at home against Zimbabwe in 1997.

Following his debut in 1998, Flintoff became an integral player for England, and was England's "Man of the Series" in the 2005 Ashes.

He later served as both captain and vice-captain of the team.

He made his Test match debut for England in 1998 against South Africa at Trent Bridge, in a match remembered for its second-innings duel between Mike Atherton and Allan Donald; in a precursor to their subsequent rivalry, Flintoff and Jacques Kallis exchanged wickets.

Nonetheless, his struggle to make the grade at county level continued, he found form only intermittently, though often explosively when he did so.

In 2000, he hit 135 not out in the quarterfinals of the Natwest Trophy against Surrey, which David Gower described as "the most awesome innings we are ever going to see on a cricket field".

In the same year England's management made clear they were unhappy with his fitness and weight, Flintoff responded to his critics with 42 not out in a one-day game against Zimbabwe on his home ground of Old Trafford, forming an explosive second-wicket stand with Graeme Hick; as he collected the Man of the Match award he remarked his performance was "not bad for a fat lad".

Although he lost his England place during 2001, he remodelled his bowling action and gained a place on the 2001–02 tour to India.

Though he hit possibly his worst international batting form during the Test series, frustrating him to the point that he broke down in tears in the dressing room at one stage, he later saw the tour as a turning point in his career, specifically the crucial final one-day match.

Entrusted with bowling the final over with India needing 11 to win, he ran out Anil Kumble and bowled Javagal Srinath with successive balls to win the match, taking off his shirt in celebration, which was mimicked by Sourav Ganguly in a later match.

In 2002, he scored his maiden Test century against New Zealand.

Up to the end of 2002, he had averaged just 19 with the bat and 47 with the ball; from 2003 to the end of the 2005 Ashes series, the corresponding figures were 43 and 28.

By 2003, a newer, fitter Flintoff started to justify the comparisons with Botham.

In the summer of 2003 he scored a century and three fifties in the five Test series against South Africa at home, and continued to excel on the tour of the West Indies in March and April 2004, taking five wickets in the Test in Barbados, and scoring a century in Antigua.

In early 2004 he was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year, having failed to make Wisden's top 40 list in 2002.

Although injury prevented him from bowling, he was called into the England squad for the 2004 NatWest One Day International (ODI) Series against New Zealand and the West Indies as a specialist batsman, scoring two consecutive centuries in the series and hitting seven sixes in one innings.

He matched this haul in the Second Test against the West Indies at Edgbaston in July, hitting a first-class best figure of 167.

During this innings, watched by a crowd of 20,000, Flintoff hit a six into the top tier of the Ryder Stand.

A man stood to claim the catch and dropped it – it was Flintoff's father.

Over the course of England's record-breaking summer, he hit a half-century in all seven victorious Tests against New Zealand and the West Indies.

On returning to the one-day game as an all-rounder in September he fell agonisingly short of a third one-day century, caught on 99 against India, though he went on to hit a further century in the ICC Champions Trophy 2004 pool match against Sri Lanka two weeks later.

At the end of the season he was named as the inaugural winner of the ICC Award for one-day player of the year, and the Professional Cricketers' Association player of the year.

He also became a father when his fiancée Rachael Wools gave birth on 6 September.

They now have a second child who was born during the series in India in 2006.

Flintoff briefly returned home from the tour to see his son for the first time.

He retired from Test cricket at the end of the 2009 Ashes series, and from other forms of the game in 2010.

He then had one professional boxing fight on 30 November 2012 in Manchester, beating American Richard Dawson on a points decision.

In 2014, Flintoff came out of retirement to play Twenty20 cricket for Lancashire, before being signed by Brisbane Heat to play in the Australian Big Bash League for the 2014–15 season.

Since his retirement, Flintoff has been involved with numerous projects, including designing his own fashion range and becoming the face of clothing brand Jacamo, winning the first series of the Australian version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, and being part of Sky One's sports-based comedy panel show A League of Their Own.

Flintoff became a presenter of the BBC One car show Top Gear in 2019, remaining with the programme until he sustained an accident during filming in late 2022.

Flintoff's father, Colin, was a plumber and factory maintenance worker and the captain of Dutton Forshaw second XI cricket team.

Flintoff attended Greenlands Community Primary School and Ribbleton Hall High School (subsequently renamed City of Preston High School).

His first trip abroad at age 14 was to Argentina.

During his school days he acquired the nickname "Freddie" due to his surname resembling that of the cartoon character Fred Flintstone.

At City of Preston High School, he passed nine GCSEs, but he did not want to stay in education and left school at 16.

As a boy, he played cricket for the Lancashire Schools under-11s and under-15s teams and he was also a keen chess player.

He then played for two and a half years in the England under-19 cricket team.