Ten days ago Andrew Flintoff's batting average had plummeted to 12, and he was one bad innings away from dropping below Darren Gough. Within a year he had gone from a batsman who physically couldn't bowl to a bowler who couldn't bat. Either way, he was no allrounder. Then he turned his first Test fifty into a meaty, matchwinning main course, and at Wellington he followed up with the sort of palatable, declaration-enabling pummelling that English batsmen serve up all too rarely. Flintoff flayed 75 off 44 balls and reached 50 in 33, a record that has only been exceeded by one Englishman, the albatross that is Ian Botham. As our graph shows, he was absolutely lethal on anything short, belting 37 runs off 19 deliveries. New Zealand didn't heed the lesson, though, and hardly pitched anything up. Flintoff faced three bowlers in his whirlwind innings, and they all suffered: Chris Martin disappeared for 21 off just eight balls, Chris Drum for 27 off 17, and Daniel Vettori for 27 off 19.

The most profitable area for Flintoff was in the arc from midwicket to long-on, where he scored 48% of his runs (36 out of 75), mostly with those hefty clumps that county bowlers have seen many times over.

Flintoff batted with an oomph of which only a few batsmen in the world are capable. With his bowling as thrifty as his batting has been extravagant - his match figures were 26-10-33-1 - that allrounder tag is finally looking justified.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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