Flintoff launches stinging attack at Atherton.

First topic message reminder :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jun/21/andrew-flintoff-attacks-michael-atherton

Andrew Flintoff, the former England all-rounder, has launched a stinging attack on Michael Atherton, calling his former England and Lancashire colleague a "f*cking pr!ck".

Speaking to an Evening Standard journalist at a Sky TV dinner at the Oxo Tower restaurant in London, Flintoff strongly criticised Atherton, who now works as a Sky commentator and Times journalist.

"He's a Tinkywinky," said Flintoff. "He's a f*cking pr!ck. He sits there making judgments about players that are much better than he ever was, believe me, he's a pr!ck.

"How can he talk about a player like Alastair Cook who is 10 times the player he ever was – he has a much bigger average and will go on and on. Atherton averaged in the 30s for England and yet he thinks he can judge others."

Flintoff was then asked if he wanted his comments to be taken as off the record, but replied: "I don't care. Say what you like. There's no love lost there."

Atherton last year criticised Alastair Cook for a lack of dynamism with the bat but has since retracted his comments after the England one-day captain's performances improved, while his relationship with Flintoff is believed to have been placed under strain when in 2006 when Atherton wrote in the Telegraph: "The only positive benefit of the injury to Flintoff may be the end of his immediate captaincy ambitions.

"I don't subscribe to the view that England's underperformance against Sri Lanka was entirely down to Flintoff's captaincy but equally I have never subscribed to the view that he is the man for the job."


Is Freddie right, or is he going completely over the top?
Personally, I think the latter

Atherton was a good Test match batsman in a side that was rather short of them - as others have pointed out, only Thorpe was consistently as good during the mid 90s. Also, Athers probably wasn't the most technically gifted, but he made up for that with hard work and determination, which to my mind are highly admirable traits.

I'm not surprised there isn't much love lost between Athers and Flintoff - County team mates for a while but coming from rather different backgrounds, with Athers being the middle class guy who learnt his cricket at grammar school and then University, while Flintoff came through the club system.

Oh, and as for being critical of other players, I would say Atherton has every right to make his opinion known - he was plenty good enough and has a fine cricketing brain, so can see when others are going wrong, even if they (KP for example) have far greater natural gifts.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?batting_positionmax1=2;batting_positionval1=batting_position;class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=batting_average;player_involve=1928;team=1;template=results;type=batting

View overall figures
Primary team England
Involving the player MA Atherton (Eng)
Batting position less than or equal to 2
Ordered by batting average (descending)

Atherton was about average for his era. Nothing to do with his right to criticise Flintoff, but Atherton was behind Gooch and Stewart, but ahead of Trescothick, Butcher and Knight in the time Atherton was playing.

Ooh well done Robbo I can never figure out the advanced query builder thing.

Actually shows he was better than his contemporaries for the most part. England seem to have a bit of a mill on the openers there though. Some of those guys (including Atherton) batted quite a bit at 3 as well of course, and Tresco and Butcher massively improved their figures post Atherton.

robbo277 wrote:

.... Nothing to do with his right to criticise Flintoff ....

Good as always to discuss spin off matters but important not to lose sight of the question set by Hoggy in the opening article. The above confirms the answer.

As for Atherton as a player, I subscribe to the fairly common view here that across his Test career he wasn't great but was good to very good. He did though play some great innings.

In his post above, Robbo admirably shows all of Atherton's opening partners and their records. However, that still only tells part of the story. Too often when Atherton went out to bat, he knew that later on the buck (be it bat or ball) would be passed to a woefully inferior Test colleague; Ian Ward, Usman Afzaal, Ronnie Irani, Mike Watkinson, Chris Schofield, Ian Salisbury and Jimmy Ormond to name seven who fall someway short of magnificent. For this reason, it is not wholly approprate to compare him with Strauss (consider his team mates). It is also ludicrous to criticise Atherton's run rate (a part of the game that was anyway hardly considered then); instead his determination to stay in and fight it out should be appreciated and applauded. To use a term more often applied by posters on the boxing board, he gave value for money.

McGrath and Ambrose always talked about getting Atherton out early as he was a stubborn so ans so. An average of 37 is ok but a 53 from Athers would often take close on two sessions. This gives the other players a wall at the other end. So best to forget averages when talking of him.

As for Freddie? He called Punter a pri.k on 'A League Of Their Own' a couple of weeks ago. Looked like he was half cut then and most probably was when talking of Atherton.

oh we can critize athertons rr all day long- the pressure that is applied to the other batsman alongside him was obviously to much for them to bear- maybe they thought they had to hit out more than naturally.. It must have been so dry being athers partner. I honestly think he had a negative influence on the team. england have never ever been that bad at cricket as we were in that era. it really was woefull

I think you don't have a clue what you're talking about on this.

Worst england team ever mike- would you agree?. A player has come out and had a pop at him and shown him no respect.. can you add 2 and 2 together

mystiroakey wrote:Worst england team ever mike- would you agree?.

Impossible to tell. At times certainly the worst I've seen.

mystiroakey wrote:A player has come out and had a pop at him and shown him no respect..

Indeed. Except that they didn't play together that often for England. And there are far far more people who speak positively of Atherton. Including his opponents.

mystiroakey wrote:can you add 2 and 2 together

1 mod 3...

mystiroakey wrote:oh we can critize athertons rr all day long- the pressure that is applied to the other batsman alongside him was obviously to much for them to bear- maybe they thought they had to hit out more than naturally.. It must have been so dry being athers partner. I honestly think he had a negative influence on the team. england have never ever been that bad at cricket as we were in that era. it really was woefull

Did I read that correctly? Between Flintoff and Atherton, you're singling out Mike Atherton as being a negative influence on his team? We are talking about Andrew Flintoff here, aren't we? The man who couldn't be bothered to get into shape for the first half of his career, who got p*ssed up at a World Cup despite being a senior player and Vice-Captain, who - while captain - turned up to a practice session so drunk that the session had to be cancelled, who missed a team visit to First World War graves because he was too hungover.

Atherton wasn't the greatest England player of all time. And perhaps the accolade of 'best batsmen in the worst batting lineup' isn't the greatest. Nonetheless, Atherton held together a completely spineless England batting lineup on numerous occasions. And he did so in what must rate as the strongest bowling era in the history of cricket. Whether or not you like him, he was invaluable to his England team. Whether or not his team mates enjoyed his batting style they must surely have appreciated having a team mate who they could rely upon not to sell his wicket cheaply.

jbeadlesbigrighthand wrote:

mystiroakey wrote:oh we can critize athertons rr all day long- the pressure that is applied to the other batsman alongside him was obviously to much for them to bear- maybe they thought they had to hit out more than naturally.. It must have been so dry being athers partner. I honestly think he had a negative influence on the team. england have never ever been that bad at cricket as we were in that era. it really was woefull

Did I read that correctly? Between Flintoff and Atherton, you're singling out Mike Atherton as being a negative influence on his team? We are talking about Andrew Flintoff here, aren't we? The man who couldn't be bothered to get into shape for the first half of his career, who got p*ssed up at a World Cup despite being a senior player and Vice-Captain, who - while captain - turned up to a practice session so drunk that the session had to be cancelled, who missed a team visit to First World War graves because he was too hungover.

Atherton wasn't the greatest England player of all time. And perhaps the accolade of 'best batsmen in the worst batting lineup' isn't the greatest. Nonetheless, Atherton held together a completely spineless England batting lineup on numerous occasions. And he did so in what must rate as the strongest bowling era in the history of cricket. Whether or not you like him, he was invaluable to his England team. Whether or not his team mates enjoyed his batting style they must surely have appreciated having a team mate who they could rely upon not to sell his wicket cheaply.

Nicely put

I honestly think he was a negative influence on our team- yes exactly that..

Flinty's selection actually kick started something new and different in the england set up. I think england were spinless because of the negative approach we had to cricket.

When flinty came on board he wasnt the best player but he was picked on potential(just like broad was recently), and we gave him alot of time to develop

In athertons time we kept switching batsmen time and time again, and it never worked. Atherton also had a very bad RR which i felt added pressure on to the other batsen, and both of those aspects were a negative influence on england. IMO

Athers opened with Gooch and Stewart for a lot of his career. Both were free scoring run getters, so Athers was the perfect partner.

yes but once athers became captain - what happened then!

stewart was captain before athers if i remember correctly but only for a short spell

Stewart captained us in 1998 after Athers.

Nasser then took over and it's been on the up from then on.

I could have sworn he captained in 1992 .

But yes i think nasser sparked the change and then vaugn also played a massive part after

1992? Maybe he filled in as a one off?

Stewart actually captained us to a win over the Saffers in 1998. Freddie made his debut that year, from what I recall.

Yep it all changed when athers left

mystiroakey wrote:Yep it all changed when athers left

Yeah, they started rubbing sugar on the ball instead of dirt

Flintoff has been one of my great cricketing champions, one of my alltime favorits. But Fredye, this was way below decent and absolutely unwanted.
Michael Atherton is one of my favorite commentators, and you know Fredye, that is because his analysis is often pretty sound.

I think he's basically a good lad, Freddy - don't forget his Brett Lee moment - but a terror on the booze. Athers was, if not a bright spark, at least a stubbornly glowing ember at a time when we didn't have much else. His duel with Donald for 98 no (was it?) remains one of my fondest cricketing memories.

Sounds like a personality clash to me. Hope Athers has the sense to keep his mouth shut.