Andrew Flintoff Reckons Phil Neville Could Have Been England's Answer To Sachin Tendulkar Or Ricky Ponting

There is no doubt that former England cricketer Andrew Flintoff is one of the greatest all-rounders that the country has ever produced.

Flintoff was an impact player. He belonged to those breeds of cricketers who cannot be judged by the number of runs or the number of wickets they took for their country. They are judged by the number of times they dug their team out of a hole. And, Flintoff did that on a plethora of occasions during his celebrated career.

The all-rounder recently expressed his admiration for English footballer Phil Neville. Hailing Neville as a genius, Flintoff went on to say that the footballer would have been England’s answer to batting legends like Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, had he continued playing cricket.

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Andrew Flintoff hails Phil Neville- the cricketer

For the uninitiated, Flintoff and Phil Neville were actually teammates at county cricket where they represented the Lancashire County cricket team in domestic cricket.

“He (Phil) was a year older than me and he was a cricketing genius. This is a big call, but if he had carried on playing cricket he could have been England’s Ricky Ponting or Sachin Tendulkar. He was that good,” Andrew Flintoff told TalkSPORT.

He added: “He used to turn up, open the batting and score a hundred every time he batted, and then he’d bowl everyone out. He was a quick bowler and he got offered a contract at Lancashire – I think £2,500 was the wage – or go play at United.

“Gary played as well and if you listen to Gary he was the best cricketer who ever walked the earth. He’d have made a good club cricketer at Bolton, but Phil was the one who was amazing and such a good lad as well.” the all-rounder joked.

And, while Andrew Flintoff went on to become one of the greatest ever all-rounders that England has produced, Phil Neville carved out a niche for himself in soccer, leading Manchester United to six English Premier League titles alongside Gary.

Andrew Flintoff was one of the spearheads of England’s historic 2005 Ashes-winning campaign, a feat which he repeated four years later before bowing out of the game.

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