The England captain should not have distanced himself from his criticism of Freddie who needs to spend less time on the beach and more time prefecting his game. Who needs Posh and Becks when you've got Andy and Vaughny? And who would ever have thought that the gracious game of cricket would be dragged screaming across the papers over a 'he-said-he-said' spat? England's captain Michael Vaughan yesterday reignited the row over Andrew Flintoff's drunken pedalo night by actually denying that he had identified it as important to England's performances in the recent World Cup. Now Vaughan is clearly not the first high-profile sports personality to claim he had been "misquoted" by the sharp teeth of UK sports sharks. Vaughan had given an interview to the Guardian whose sports correspondent stood by the paper's assertion that Vaughan had singled out Flintoff and actually put extracts from the interview on its website. Whatever the merits of the piece, it's nice to see the Guardian giving sport a higher profile than its usual deference to health foods, villas in Tuscany and obscure art-house films. I say to the paper and bravissimo to Vaughan who should not be afraid to come out strongly in support of his comments. He may well have incurred the wrath of Lancashire chief executive Jim Cumbes, who described Vaughan's comments as "despicable." Sorry, Jim, you've had your 15 minutes of fame, now go and water the plants hanging from the Old Trafford pavilion. Your lad Freddie was bang out of order in the pedalo affair and yes, his night of fishing for trouble could well have cost England a realistic stab at the World Cup. Should England secure the series against a dreadful West Indies, Vaughan will go down on record as England's most successful captain. And there are a few big hitters on the list he has surpassed; Colin Cowdrey, Ted Dexter, Sir Len Hutton, Mike Brearley to name a few. And you don't have to be an expert on the logic of prime numbers to work out that without Vaughan, England are a bunch of fairly talented players in search of a leader. The debacle at Adelaide when England were giving their wickets away like burnt offerings in the Old Testament would never have happened under Vaughan, nor indeed would a 5-0 capitulation to the Baggy Greens. Flintoff, for all his brilliance in 2005 (and he was indeed brilliant), needs to remember an important point. He is only as good as his next innings, and for me the most poignant image of the 2005 Ashes was not his colossus stature on the pitch, but rather the shambolic mess of a man who could barely walk into 10 Downing Street to share a glass of bubbly with the PM. Yes, Andy, by all means revel in the historic reclaim of the Ashes, but control your drinking. And so to the pedalo. A boisterous evening out or much more? Vaughan knows what he is talking about here. The skipper is not one to court controversy. In most cases, the media liaison mafia of the ECB do not need to hold his hand to get into buildings or speak to the assembled wolf packs of cricket journalists. He's a man of conviction and integrity, always ready to take it on the chin when he is to blame. Flintoff and Cumbes should learn from this approach, put up and shut up. We taxpayers get up on freezing cold mornings to earn a crust while a dozen or so blokes have the privilege and honour of five-star hotels, swimming pools, spas and playing cricket all day and every day. Is it too much to ask them to tone down on the drinking and womanising (the picture of pacemen Jon Lewis in a Jamaica nightclub shows his balls were closer to a buxom blonde than Adam Gilchrist's off stump). What about Ian Botham, I hear. Sorry, we are not comparing like with like. Flintoff is a class act and has had some audacious performances with bat and ball, but he ain't no Botham and never will be. Sure, Beefy had his moments of extra-curricular activities in the slips (and other under-garments), but one thing you knew for sure, come 11am the next day, he would be out there outperforming his 10 colleagues on the field. The morning after pedalo Flintoff was lucky not to have woken up in A and E. Andrew, get yourself in trim, have the op to get back bowling and lead us to reclaim the Ashes in 2009, again under Vaughan. It's all we ask, and all we deserve. Just make sure the sharks in the sea and those behind the green visors leave you alone.
