Introduction: It is an irony that I get to read the autobiography of Flintoff and his accounts of the 2005 Ashes series triumph when the England team led by him just suffered the ignominy of suffering a white wash in their 2006 Ashes series. Andrew Flintoff (popularly known as 'Freddie') should have been eager to capitalize on the popularity of the ashes triumph and seems to have come up with this book for just that purpose.Narration Style: At the beginning of the book when Freddie says that things like bowling, batting & playing chess came naturally to him, I felt that he was trying to blow his own trumpets a bit too much. As the book progressed, I understood that he was very candid & the initial statements were more of a direct way of putting things across. The frankness with which he admits some of his mistakes on & off the field make Freddie very endearing. If you weren't a big fan of Freddie already, you would surely become one after reading this book. He gives us accounts of his cricket playing days from the age of six and his phenomenal rise till the ashes series where he won the man-of-the-series award in a lively & humorous manner.
Negatives: One of the major problems of the book is the lack of a personal touch. The book, at best, appears to be a tour diary than an autobiography. Freddie never deals with the emotional turmoils that he has surmounted during his off-days & also during the emotionally draining ashes series. I can understand when he doesn't talk about his family to a great extent but what beats me is the lack of description of the inner battles that he has won during his rise to the stature of a superstar in England. His openness and some interesting anecdotes prevent the book from becoming an absolute waste of time.
Bottomline: You would probably be better of reading various cricket news in the net & in the paper than reading this book. They would give you as much or maybe more information about cricket at the highest level than this book.
Trivia: Do not miss out on what Freddie has to say about Ganguly. You can read about it here.
5 comments:
Nice Review ! It is quite early for Flintoff to write something like this I guess. I generally believe that someone at the end of the career will go for it, because they will have so much so far in their tenure to express.
With respect to Ganguly, it is going to be nth hand information and sometimes you just believe what you want to believe !
The thing that made me take notice of this comment by Flintoff is the fact that he did not 'bad mouth' anyone in his book (Ok, maybe 1 or 2). He always praised people & it came as a surprise for me to find this comment on Ganguly.
Has he mentioned only about his cricket in this book? Or does it also include anything on his "off the field" life which includes freddie enterprises that has notched up 1 million pounds when the team led by him was beaten black and blue by the Aussies for a 5-0 result
Ohhh......... 1 million pounds!!!! That's a lotttt of money. No mention whatsoever of that. And I am sure that he will not talk about those
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2535222.html
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