Andy Flower exhausts superlatives

An unassuming Zimbabwean with an exotic surname is fast becoming a bane for harried headline writers.

Andy Flower's astonishing feats with the bat over the last year have rewritten the record books. They are also exhausting the ingenuity of newspaper, magazine and online sub-editors as they struggle for yet another horticultural pun.

The simple facts tell the story effectively enough.

Last November, Flower scored 183 not out, 70, 55 and 232 in a two-match series against India. Witnesses say they had never seen a finer player of spin bowling.

This month, Flower became the first wicketkeeper to score a century in each innings of a Test match. After 142 in the first innings, he was left stranded on 199 in the second.

His 11 Test hundreds are three better than Englishman Les Ames's previous best for a wicketkeeper and he now averages 55.51 from his 54 Test matches. Only the Indian master Sachin Tendulkar, with 57.18, averages more among current players.

"I've seen a lot of great players around the world but I don't think I've ever seen a player with the shot selection he has," said former South Africa all-rounder Mike Procter.

"He seems to play every single delivery as he should play it. If it's up, he goes forward, if it's short he goes back. If it's not hittable, he leaves it. He's incredible, he's a machine."

Of current players, Flower most resembles Australia captain Steve Waugh, the man he has replaced at the top of the world batting rankings.

RUTHLESSLY REFINED

Waugh has ruthlessly refined his game to exclude shots with the slightest chance of error. He also averages 50 in Test cricket, the proof of a great player.

Yet Waugh plays for the undisputed world champions, a team acknowledged as one of the finest in history. Tendulkar plays most of his cricket on benign Indian pitches and does not carry the burden of leading his team or keeping wicket.

"Surely no cricketer in the history of the game has for so long borne such a burden with such success as has Andy Flower," says Zimbabwe cricket writer John Ward.

"He has spent endless hours perfecting his batting technique. He has also spent his life developing his mental strength."

The closest modern equivalent to Flower is another compact left-hander, former Australia captain Allan Border.

Border was the national captain at the start of the last decade, a period of almost unbroken success for Australia.

His finest achievements, though, came in the 1980s, a bleak era for Australian cricket.

Border captained a side striving and generally failing to come to terms with the aftermath of World Series Cricket and a series of rebel tours to South Africa.

West Indies were at their menacing best at this period yet somehow Border battled everything they, and anybody else, could throw at him.

He averaged 56.57 in 70 overseas Tests, 45.94 in 86 home Tests for a career average of 50.56. Incredibly he also made 273 one-day international appearances.

ORDINARY SOUL

"Essentially he was an ordinary soul who accomplished extraordinary deeds," wrote Australian journalist Mike Coward in a tribute which could equally apply to Flower.

An even better comparison could be with the great Jamaican George Headley, who like Flower was largely self-taught and played for the West Indies when they, like Zimbabwe now, usually lost.

Yet Headley still averaged 60.83 in Test cricket. Figures show he was more effective on bad pitches than the peerless Don Bradman and may have been the finest batsman on all surfaces between the two world wars.

"George Headley, this West Indian, would be my candidate for a clinical study of a great batsman as a unique type of human being, mentally and physically," wrote the Trinidadian Marxist historian and cricket writer C.L.R James in his classic "Beyond a Boundary".

Flower inhabits a far smaller world with far greater opportunities than Headley enjoyed. But his achievement in coming from a cricketing backwater and turning himself by sheer force of will into a great batsman is uncannily similar.

"I don't think we have seen anyone perform against South Africa like he has," says Procter. "We've never had two innings as good as that scored against us."

Flower was disappointed but resigned after failing to reach another landmark with a double century in the second innings of the first Test.

"It's a pity I didn't get there because I was so close," he said. "But I had my opportunities and I didn't take them."

The only previous Zimbabwe batsman to score a century in both innings of a Test is Flower's younger brother Grant.

The pair enjoy a close relationship and, when batting together, often confuse all opponents other than South Africa by calling in Afrikaans.

They are both obsessed with physical fitness, playing squash and going on road runs together. Grant is more introverted while Andy understands the importance of the media in the modern game.

"I think as sportsmen in the public eye we're all ambassadors for our country," said Andy. During troubled times in Zimbabwe, his country could not have a finer representative.

Mail Cricket Editor