GREAT sportsmen reserve their best performances for the biggest stages and the most worthy opponents. That is what defines their status.

Andrew Flintoff is, if not a great all-rounder, most certainly a great bowler. So it was no surprise that the Lancashire and England cricketer chose to push his body to the limit in his last Test at Lord’s to unleash the mighty 10-over burst of fast bowling which took his side to their 115-run victory over Australia at Lord’s yesterday.

It was England’s first success over the old enemy at the home of cricket for 75 years and the win gives Andrew Strauss’s men a 1-0 lead in the five-match series with three to play.

Flintoff shrugged off concerns about his troubled right knee to finally break Australia’s resistance with a spell of 10-1-43-3.

It ripped to shreds any hope Australia’s players might have kindled that their last five wickets would add a further 209 runs yesterday and thus complete the highest successful fourth-innings run-chase in the history of the first-class game.

From the moment Brad Haddin edged the 31-year-old’s fourth ball of the morning to Paul Collingwood at second slip, it was impossible to see the hopes of the green and gold thousands being realised.

Australia were 313-6 and England were through to the non-specialist batsmen.

Although Mitchell Johnson hit a 75-ball 63 to make the England’s eventual margin of victory a mere 115 runs, the essential breakthrough had been made.

Flintoff ensured that it didn’t go to waste. Bowling unchanged from the Pavilion End at a speed which rarely dipped below 87 mph and regularly touched 93, the spearhead of the national side literally targeted the Australian batsmen with chilling efficiency.

His later victims, Nathan Hauritz, bowled letting a breakback go, and Peter Siddle, beaten for pace and castled, completed his figures of 5-92, the third “five-for” of his Test career.

Yesterday morning, Australia sailed into the perfect storm and its name was Flintoff. It was inexhaustible and there was no refuge from it.

Yet cricket, for all that it magnifies the strengths and failings of the individual, is still a team game. Both James Anderson, in his accurate three-over spell first thing, and Graeme Swann, his bowling vastly improved from the Cardiff Test, made key contributions to a win which sets up the rest of this already compelling series.

It was the Nottinghamshire off-spinner whose second ball of the morning tempted Michael Clarke down the wicket, where the Australian vice-captain missed the ball and lost his off stump after making a fabulous 136.

It was the same bowler who completed the victory when Johnson was lulled into a similar indiscretion 15 minutes before lunch. Swann’s four wickets for 87 runs were a vital element in England’s historic win.

But even as the spinner was celebrating his successes, one’s mind strayed back to the manner in which Flintoff greeted his own triumphs.

Whereas the slow bowler engaged in spontaneous ebullition and scampered towards his teammates, Flintoff shamelessly milked the adoration of the crowd and waited for his colleagues to run to him. When he bowled Siddle, he even went on one knee and raised his arms as if he was making an offering on an altar of some sort. Well, Lord’s is as near to a cathedral as the game of cricket possesses, so maybe he was.

Swann himself certainly wouldn’t have begrudged Flintoff his moment of indulgence.

“It’s unbelievable. Everybody was a little bit nervous and apprehensive this morning. Fred getting that wicket (of Haddin) calmed everyone down,” said Swann, who then jokingly claimed the most important wicket of the day for his dismissal of Clarke.

“It was a surprise more than anything,” he added.

“He held them together I think so to get him out was probably the key wicket. So I’ll take all the glory,” he added tongue-in-cheek.

Strauss also singled out Flintoff during the presentation ceremony, adding: “I just want to give a special mention to Andrew Flintoff, who was magnificent this morning.”

But he admitted though that the fitness of Flintoff was still a cause for concern.

“It is a little bit,” he said. “But I am still very hopeful we will have a fit squad to choose from for the next Test match.”

The player himself then insisted that yesterday’s success will not change his mind about retiring from the five-day game.

“It’s been a good Test match and a real team performance, there were some very special performances in this Test,” he said.

“It’s nice to get five wickets this morning and take the plaudits but it has been a real team effort.”

The all-rounder insists he is content to see out the Ashes series before stepping down from Test cricket.

“I will obviously give my all in them. It’s going to be hard to get through them but I’m confident I’ll do it and then after that I’m looking forward to playing one-dayers and Twenty20.”

This was the first of Flintoff’s last four Test matches and in nearly 34 days’ time he hopes to end his career with the Ashes secure in England’s possession.