‘You look like Tarzan’ – Andrew Flintoff recalls hilarious sledging episode with Shoaib Akhtar

New Delhi: Former England allrounder Andrew Flintoff was known to be a verbal customer on the field. While every cricketing fan remembers Sourav Ganguly removing his shirt at Lord’s, not many recall that it was Flintoff who had done the same before at Wankhede. Flintoff also exchanged words with Yuvraj Singh in the 2007 T20 World Cup encounter between England and India. In the next over, the left-hander had hammered six sixes to Stuart Broad.

Speaking to Talk Sport, Flintoff recalled another hilarious sledging episode with Pakistan legend Shoaib Akhtar from a 2005 Test match between England and Pakistan. Flintoff said that Akhtar kept calling him ‘fat’ which led him to respond.

“Listen to this, I got feelings. He (Shoaib) kept having a go at me. He kept calling me ‘fat’. Fat this, fat that. I am not having this, I am thinking I am going to nip this in the b***. So, as I walked in, I said, Shoaib, it’s all right, you look like Tarzan, but you bowl like Jane,” Flintoff said.

“It haunted me straight away. I walked out to bat, I think 1st or 2nd ball, my off-stump was cart-wheeling back as he knocked it over. Then, as I walked off, he gave me a big ‘OOOHHHH’,” he said.

In his career, the 42-year-old Flintoff went on to play 79 Tests in which he scored 3,845 runs and picked 226 wickets. He also played 141 ODIs, in which he scored 3,394 runs and picked 169 wickets. His last appearance for England was in August 2009 in a Test match against Australia at The Oval.