Strauss and Flintoff could do no wrong

London: Captains are rarely able to say that they produced the perfect performance at the helm of their side but Andrew Strauss came pretty damn close to it here at Lord's. It was a spotless display of leadership from the England skipper.

After all that went wrong at Cardiff, being outcaptained by Ricky Ponting in a Test England so nearly lost, this was a demonstration of the man's character, tactical acumen and his leadership of men.

Everything Strauss did was right and that included not enforcing the follow- on and the timing of the declaration at the start of the fourth day.

Even the timing of his introduction of Graeme Swann to the attack on Monday, when he could have been tempted to rely on seam, was perfect.

It was certainly a close call between Strauss, after his big century and captaincy, and Andrew Flintoff as to who should have been man of the match in England's historic victory.

They are such different characters from opposite ends of the spectrum, and at times they have not got on too well, but these two were the pillars on which England's win was built.

They were equally instrumental in England's first Ashes victory at Lord's for 75 years.

Strauss would have been nervous on Sunday night after Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin's unbeaten partnership, particularly as he knew that Australia had strokemakers down the order and had plenty of time to score another 209 runs.

But the break at the end of day four came at a good time for England.

They were able to regroup overnight and came back Monday right on the button from Jimmy Anderson's first ball on what was still a very true Lord's pitch.

What a monumental effort we have seen from Flintoff. Who writes his scripts, as they used to say about Ian Botham? It was Flintoff's last Test at Lord's and to produce a spell of bowling like that was a truly fantastic effort, one to which Australia had no answer. There was simply no respite.

It is extraordinary, really, that this was only Flintoff's third five-wicket haul in Test cricket. I think you can look at his natural length for the reason behind that. Freddie bowls just short of a good length and, as a consequence, a lot of his best balls either go over the stumps or past the edge of the bat. And his stock ball has always come into the righthander whereas most of the great bowlers have naturally moved it away.