Fast bowler Steve Harmison can become England’s leading Test wicket-taker according to his England colleague Andrew Flintoff after they teamed up to help England regain the Ashes.

Harmison claimed three wickets, including two in consecutive balls, in the climax of England’s 197-run victory over Australia, which was defeated 2-1 in the series to surrender the Ashes.

Flintoff has been England’s most hostile and fastest bowler in recent years and the only other bowler in English cricket who has managed to consistently emulate similar speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour is Harmison, whose career has faltered in the last 18 months having been dropped twice because of patchy form.

With Flintoff now retired from Test cricket because of a knee injury and instead focusing on limited overs matches only, there is now more of an opportunity for the Durham player Harmison to move ahead in his Test career.

Ian Botham is the highest English Test wicket-taker with 373 victims, while Flintoff and Harmison are joint tenth in the England tally with 226.

“If I was Steve Harmison and could bowl like that I would keep going,” Flintoff told reporters Monday at the team’s London hotel, after being asked about Harmison’s future. “If you ask any batsman in the world ‘who do you not want to face?’ it would be Steve Harmison.”

“He could end up being one of the greats for England. He could go on to be our leading wicket-taker of all time. If he wants to, there is still a lot more to come. Whatever decision he makes will be the right one.

“But as his friend I would like nothing more to be at Lord’s next year drinking champagne and watching him take more wickets for England.”

Harmison played in the fourth and fifth Tests having been overlooked for the first three matches of the Ashes series.

England - The Ashes 2009

England regained the Ashes with a 197-run win over Australia in the fifth and final Test at the Oval on Sunday. 

Victory, achieved with more than a day to spare, saw England take the five-match series 2-1.

Australia, set what would have been a record fourth innings victory total of 546, were bowled out for 348 with Michael Hussey last man out for 121, when he was caught close in by Alastair Cook off spinner Graeme Swann.

“It’s a special moment. It hasn’t sunk in yet. We had to dig in and fight,” said England skipper Andrew Strauss.

“When we were bad in the series, we were very bad but when we were good we were very good.”

Australia captain Ricky Ponting said: “We gave it all we could, but it wasn’t enough. Full credit to England, they won the crucial moments and deserved to win the series.

“I think this series has shown that Test cricket is alive and well around the world.”

From 327 for five, the end came swiftly with four wickets going down for 16 runs in 32 balls, with fast bowler Stephen Harmison taking three for seven in 13 himself.

It was a remarkable turnaround for England, who’d lost the fourth Test by an innings and 80 runs at Headingley, and had only clung on for a draw in the series opener at Cardiff by a single wicket.

Australia had been making steady progress at 217 for two before Ponting was run out by Andrew Flintoff’s direct hit in the all-rounder’s last match before his Test retirement.

Five balls later Michael Clarke was also run out for nought, before England’s progress was checked by a sixth-wicket stand of 91 between Hussey and Brad Haddin.

But just when England fans were starting to fret again, Haddin, on 34, went down the pitch to Swann, who took four for 120 in 40.2 overs, and hoisted a mistimed drive to Strauss at mid-wicket.

And 327 for six became 327 for seven when Australia lost another two wickets in quick succession.

Mitchell Johnson went for a seven-ball nought, brilliantly caught by diving second slip Paul Collingwood off his Durham team-mate Harmison.

Peter Siddle then got a leading edge off Harmison and Flintoff held a simple catch at mid-off.

Harmison made it two wickets in two balls when Stuart Clark was snapped up at short leg by Cook.

Ben Hilfenhaus survived the hat-trick but the end was nigh.

England had taken the new ball after tea with Australia 278 for five.

But Hussey’s two off Stuart Broad saw him to a first Test century in 29 innings off 219 balls with 11 boundaries.

Flintoff and Strauss had stunned Australia with two run-outs, the first they’d suffered this series, before tea to dismiss Ponting and Clarke.

Ponting and Hussey had frustrated England with a third-wicket stand of 127 that raised hopes of an improbable victory.

But Flintoff struck in unlikely fashion.

Hussey called Ponting for a single off Harmison but Flintoff, running round from mid-on, threw down the stumps at the striker’s end and Ponting was short of his ground by a foot.

Ponting, in what could be his final Ashes Test in England, had to go for 66, having stroked 10 stylish fours in his 103-ball stay after he and left-hander Hussey had revived Australia from the depths of 90 for two.

Vice-captain Clarke fell in even more extraordinary fashion.

Australia’s leading batsman this series, clipped a ball from Swann that deflected off the boot of Alastair Cook at short leg to leg-slip Strauss, who hit the stumps with a sharp under-arm throw.

This was a much tighter call for third umpire Peter Hartley but he eventually ruled the bail was in the air with Clarke’s bat still to be grounded.

Clarke was out for nought and Australia, who’d lost two wickets for three runs in six balls, were now 220 for four.

And they could have been five down had not Collingwood dropped Hussey, on 55, off Swann.

But Australia were 236 for five when Marcus North, trying to sweep Swann, was smartly stumped by wicket-keeper Matt Prior.

Australia resumed Sunday on 80 without loss.

Left-hander Simon Katich had only added one to his overnight 42 when, padding up, he was plumb lbw to Swann.

Three balls later, fellow opener Shane Watson (40) was lbw to man-of-the-match Stuart Broad.

England consolidated Saturday the advantage gained from dismissing Australia for just 160, with Broad taking five for 37, in a second innings 373 for nine declared that featured a debut century from Jonathan Trott, who made 119.

Strauss’s declaration left the visitors needing to break the record for a successful Test fourth innings run-chase, of 418 for seven set by West Indies against Australia in Antigua in 2002/03, to win this match.

England victory’s left Ponting with the unwanted record of becoming only the second Australia captain, since Billy Murdoch in 1890, to be in charge of two losing Ashes tours of England.

And it also knocked Australia off top spot in the Test rankings.

Jonathan Trott’s debut hundred left England eyeing a stunning Ashes triumph as they closed in on a series-clinching victory in the fifth and deciding Test at the Oval on Saturday.

Australia, at stumps on the third day, were 80 without loss – still needing a further 466 runs to reach what would be a new Test record fourth innings victory total of 546.

Trott’s 119 was the centrepiece of England’s second innings 373 for nine declared in a match where a win would see them regain the Ashes by taking the series 2-1.

Victory would also leave Ricky Ponting with the unwanted record of becoming the first Australia captain in over a century, since Billy Murdoch, to be in charge of two losing Ashes tours of England following his side’s 2005 reverse.

But openers Shane Watson (31 not out) and Simon Katich (42 not out) ensured Australia made a sound start to their imposing chase.

England, at tea, were 290 for seven.

Trott was 83 not out and Graeme Swann 34 not out, with part-time Australia spinner Marcus North taking Test-best figures of four for 98.

Australia took the new ball immediately after tea but England responded by thrashing their pace bowlers for 83 runs in 12 overs.

Swann, dropped on 47 by Ponting, made a dashing 63 off just 55 balls as he added 90 for the eighth wicket with Trott at better than a run-a-ball.

Trott, picked in place of the dropped Ravi Bopara, retained his composure although on 97 he nearly played on to Ben Hilfenhaus.

But his clipped four off the swing bowler took South Africa-born Trott to a hundred in 182 balls with nine boundaries in just over five hours.

The 28-year-old, qualified to play for England through his English father, became the 18th England batsman to make a century on Test debut and the first to do so against Australia since Graham Thorpe at Trent Bridge in 1993.

His hundred was only the second by an England batsman this series after captain Andrew Strauss’s 161 in their 115-run second Test win at Lord’s and was a vindication of the faith the selectors had shown in handing a debut to Trott, in superb form for Warwickshire this season, in such a high-stakes match.

He was eventually last man out, caught by North off Stuart Clark.

Four years ago an Oval hundred by a South Africa-born batsman, the now injured Kevin Pietersen, had helped regain the Ashes for England with a draw – Trott’s innings may yet enable them to do so with a win.

Strauss declared to set Australia would be a new fourth innings victory total, surpassing the 418 for seven made by West Indies against Australia in Antigua in 2002/03.

Trott, together with Strauss (75), shared a fourth-wicket stand of 118 and demonstrated an admirable temperament after coming to the crease when England were struggling at 39 for three.

The only downside for England fans here was that Andrew Flintoff’s final innings before the all-rounder’s Test retirement saw him make just 22 before he holed out off North.

Primarily a batsman, North bowled 30 overs after Australia decided against recalling lone specialist spinner Nathan Hauritz and stuck with the team that won the fourth Test at Headingley by an innings and 80 runs.

Pace bowler Stuart Broad put England in pole position with a superb haul of five for 37 on Friday as Australia were bowled out for just 160 in reply to England’s first innings 332 on a pitch which, while not the ideal batting surface associated with the Oval, was far from a terror track.

As with cornered animals, so it goes with sports teams. Box them tightly into a corner and one of two things can happen: fight or flight. 

But who, honestly, expected England to fight like this? In one devastating afternoon Friday of bowling on a wicket crumbling like over-baked oatmeal flapjack, captain Andrew Strauss’ squad, written off one minute, darlings of the nation the next, reshaped the course of the Ashes. The outcome of a six-week series of five matches seemingly decided in just two hours.

England haven’t quite, at least not yet, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat that many had predicted for them. But they put themselves in a position to do so, in what will rank as one of the more remarkable wins in the Ashes’ 127-year history.

Those who fear that Test cricket’s days are numbered, that the limited-overs version of the game is destined to steal away fans’ hearts and advertisers’ money, should rejoice at this absorbing encounter.

Only five-day games provide so many twists, subplots and depth of drama, although, given how Australia is succumbing at The Oval, this match will be over well before the umpires call time.

To pin Australia’s slump on its captain, Ricky Ponting, would be unfair. This was a collective failure. But Ponting made a crucial error in deciding not to play his leading spin bowler Nathan Hauritz on The Oval’s unusually dry and dusty pockmarked wicket. Ponting must have looked on enviously Friday as off-spinner Graeme Swann exploited the turn and uneven bounce so effectively for England, taking 4 for 38.

It’s easy to say that sporting heroes are born from the type of desperate situation that England faced going into this test. A must-win game, for a team weakened by injury and doubt after a crushing defeat in the penultimate Test at Headingley tied the series on one-match apiece and handed Australia the momentum.

But to be a hero, someone has to step up. Someone has to seize the moment, shrug off the pressure and put in the big performance.

Often, no one does and hopes are dashed. Sometimes, more rarely, they do. On Friday, that man was Stuart Broad. More importantly than simply taking wickets, he gave England hope. He triggered the Australian batting collapse, with the first four wickets in a 21-ball burst at a cost of just eight runs.

He finished with five for 37. Broad also took six for 91 in England’s disaster at Headingley, but his performance at The Oval was better and far more important.

As the wickets tumbled, a renewed belief in England flowed into the ground. The partisan crowd, until then so studiously subdued, roared. Broad, who is strikingly handsome with his blond hair and blue eyes, doffed his blue cap to acknowledge the applause.

He sent Ponting back to the dressing room for just 8 runs. There, the Australian captain furiously chewed the nails of both hands as Australia slumped to 160 all out.

“It was hard to stop the momentum,” said opener Simon Katich, Australia’s high scorer on 50 and one of just four who reached double-figures.

Based on this performance, England may have found its replacement for Andrew Flintoff.

Like Flintoff, 23-year-old Broad clearly has a sense for the big occasion. He has proved in this series that he can add useful runs, too. He is ambitiously eyeing the No.7 spot in the England batting order that Flintoff will relinquish when he retires from Test cricket after this series.

England can give thanks to the teenage growth spurt that transformed Broad into the 6-foot, 6-inch giant he is now. While his bowling lacks the venom that Flintoff unleashes at his best, Broad’s height gives him fearsome penetration with the ball.

“I grew nearly a foot in a year,” Broad told the Guardian newspaper. “That must have been fate because it changed me from a batsman to a bowler and then within a year I was playing international cricket.”

Australian expectations had been so high before this match that Ponting had joked about his team needing an open-top train to celebrate in. Ponting will now surely be asking that it has blacked-out windows, instead.

Australia moved closer towards retaining the Ashes after reducing England to 307 for eight on the first day of the fifth and final Test at the Oval on Thursday.

Several England batsmen, including captain Andrew Strauss, made starts but could not go on to get the big score the team needed in a match they had to win to regain the Ashes but Australia needed only to draw to retain them, with the series level at 1-1.

Ian Bell battled hard for 72 but was unable to claim a maiden Ashes hundred in his 13th Test against Australia.

Warwickshire colleague Jonathan Trott, making his Test debut, looked good in compiling 41 before he was spectacularly run out by Simon Katich while Strauss fell for 55.

Sadly for home fans, Andrew Flintoff – in his last Test before an injury-induced retirement – barely got going before he was caught behind off left-arm quick Mitchell Johnson for seven.

Peter Siddle, who took a trio of top-order wickets, ended play for the day when he had Graeme Swann caught behind, the fast bowler finish with figures of four for 63 in 18.3 overs.

Bell fell to his first ball after tea when he played on to Siddle with a large gap between bat and pad.

His innings spanned 137 balls with 10 fours in nearly four hours but his exit left England wobbling at 181 for four after Strauss, England’s only century-maker this series with 161 in their second Test win at Lord’s, had chosen to bat first on a typically good Oval pitch.

It was a marked improvement after Bell had managed just 11 runs before twice falling to Johnson in England’s innings and 80 run fourth Test defeat at Headingley which saw Australia level the series at 1-1.

But, not for the first time in his 49-Test career, the 27-year-old left England thinking of what might have been.

Wicketkeeper Matt Prior briefly upped the tempo while Trott cover-drove Stuart Clark for four.

But Johnson ended a stand worth 48 when he deceived Prior into playing too early, the ball looping to Shane Watson at point.

Flintoff walked out to a standing ovation.

England’s top scorer in the drawn third Test at Edgbaston had been controversially left out at Headingley because the selectors feared his right knee problem would prevent him getting through the match.

But further batting heroics would have to wait until the second innings after a flat-footed, edged cut was caught by wicketkeeper Brad Haddin.

South Africa born Trott looked assured but, having walked forward and started to look for a single off part-time spinner Marcus North, not even a dive could see him beat short leg Katich’s direct hit on the stumps.

It was a brilliantly quick piece of work and saw the end of Trott’s 81-ball innings featuring five fours.

England, who’d lost their last three wickets for 39 runs, were now 267 for eight and again in danger of being bowled out for an uncompetitive first innings score.

They had advanced from 108 for one to 180 for three at tea, losing both Strauss and Paul Collingwood (24) in the second session.

Strauss exited when the left-handed opener limply hung his bat outside off-stump against Ben Hilfenhaus and edged to Haddin.

It was a tame end to an innings that saw Strauss complete an 89-ball fifty featuring 10 fours.

His stand of 102 with Bell had taken England from 12 for one, following the early loss of Alastair Cook, to 114 for two

Strauss’s departure saw the experienced Collingwood come in at number four, one higher than his usual position. But he never settled and sliced Siddle to Michael Hussey in the gully.

England head into the fifth and final Test against Australia here at the Oval with the series all square at 1-1 and needing a win to regain the Ashes.

Only twice before have they been in the exact same position at this stage of a five-match Ashes series – and on both occasions they failed to get the win they wanted.

Both matches came during the 1960s, when only 10 of 25 Ashes Tests ended in a positive result.

That decade saw England and Australia both accused in their matches against one another of excessive caution in not wanting to risk defeat in the pursuit of victory.

In the 1962/63 Ashes in Australia, an England side captained by Ted Dexter won the second Test at Melbourne to go 1-0 up with Fred Trueman, one of cricket’s greatest fast bowlers, taking five second innings wickets and Colin Cowdrey and David Sheppard both scoring centuries.

However, Australia hit back in the third Test with fast bowling all-rounder Alan Davidson taking nine wickets in an eight-wicket win.

But the next two Tests both ended in draws as Australia retained the Ashes.

Crowds, enlivened by the bold approach of the West Indies side that played in Australia in 1960/61, were far from impressed and Australian cricket reporter Ray Robinson, writing in the Cricketer magazine, quoted a letter sent by a fan to one of the local papers.

“It is a sad blow to cricket that (Neil) Harvey and Davidson are quitting the game but they shouldn’t be lonely, as they are retiring at the same time as 10,000 spectators.”

It was a similar story in 1965/66 where England, strong in batting but weaker in bowling, again fell at the final hurdle.

But, as The Times’ correspondent John Woodcock pointed out, it was a batting collapse that enabled Australia, who didn’t lose an Ashes series throughout the 1960s, to get the win they needed in a campaign featuring three drawn Tests.

England, inspired by Bob Barber’s 185 and five first innings wickets from fast bowler David Brown, won the third Test at Sydney by an innings and 93 runs.

“They were on top of the world when they went to Adelaide for the fourth Test match and yet they were bowled out for 241 and 266,” Woodcock wrote in the Cricketer. England lost by an innings and nine runs.

With the series all square, the teams headed to Melbourne. England piled up 485 for nine declared, featuring a century from Barrington, only for Australia to respond with 543 for eight declared which included Bob Cowper’s 12-hour 307, the first Test triple-century on Australian soil.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is currently trying to crack down on pitches that are too batsmen-friendly, an issue at grounds around the world, but this is not a new problem.

“Australia would help themselves, as well as the game in general, if curators from Perth to Brisbane were told, in no uncertain terms, to make their pitches faster,” Woodcock wrote at the end of the 1965/66 series. “That should be the next stage in restoring the popularity of the game.”

But while the history books may be against Andrew Strauss’s side at the Oval they can take comfort their performance in the second Test of this series, on the other side of London’s River Thames.

England hadn’t won an Ashes Test at Lord’s for 75 years but that didn’t stop them from triumphing by 115 runs at the ‘home of cricket‘.

England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff expressed full confidence on Tuesday that he would be fit for the final Test of his career in the deciding Ashes match against Australia at the Oval this week. England need to win the fifth Test starting on Thursday if they are to regain the Ashes. The series is tied 1-1.

Flintoff bowled England to victory in the second Test at Lord’s but missed the fourth Test loss at Headingley in Leeds when the selectors decided his injured right knee would not stand up to the stress of a five-day match.

At a news conference on Tuesday Flintoff, who will retire from Test cricket after the Ashes series following a daunting sequence of serious injuries, said he not bowled since the drawn third Test but had concentrated on rehabilitation on the knee which required an operation this year.

He practised on Tuesday with a brace on his heavily strapped right knee and went through his paces in the nets without showing any obvious discomfort.

“I have been trying to get ready for this one which is going to be an unbelievably good game,” he said. “I am confident that I will be all right but as I say I have to prove it.

“I am sure there will be an element of swelling, however that can be managed. Using various treatments I can get the swelling down.

“For the past week I have been getting fit for this Test match. It will be the biggest I have ever played, not because it’s been my last but because of the position of the series.”

Flintoff, 31, who was the key England player in the epic 2005 Ashes series with both bat and ball, said he did not think the heavy defeat in the fourth Test would have any bearing on the course of the Oval Test.

“It’s quite exciting in the dressing room,” he said. “People want to get going on Thursday and play.

“Momentum is a word everyone seems to use but it keeps swinging according to who you speak to. I think this Test match is more of a one-off.

“It’s how the teams react to the pressure on such a big occasion. I think the team that does that best will take the honours at the end of it.

“I think if we win it’s going to be a far greater achievement than in 2005 — 2005 was fantastic but the side had performed well over a period of time. We had beaten everybody in the world.

“This side has gone through a lot over the last 12 months, the side has changed a hell of a lot. We have got young players who have never played in the Ashes.”

Australia vice-captain Michael Clarke said his side would do everything they could to have a player of Andrew Flintoff’s class back in their side for a match such as the Ashes finale at the Oval.

England and Australia head into the fifth Test, which starts on Thursday, with the series all square at 1-1. The hosts must win to regain the Ashes and Australia avoid defeat to retain them.

Only twice before in the history of Test cricket’s oldest contest have the arch-rivals been locked at 1-1 with one to play and this match has been given added spice by it being the injury prone Flintoff’s last before he retires from the five-day format.

The star of England’s 2005 Ashes series win, Flintoff bowled England into a series lead this season in the second Test at Lord’s before top-scoring for his side in the drawn third Test at Edgbaston.

However, the 31-year-old fast bowler was controversially left out of the fourth Test at Headingley on fitness grounds where, in his absence, Australia thrashed England by an innings and 80 runs.

Asked if all the fuss over Flintoff would prove a distraction to England, Clarke told reporters at the Oval here on Tuesday: “It depends what’s going on inside their camp.

“Freddie is an amazing player. If we were in that position and it was Ricky (Ponting, the Australia captain), we’d be that keen to have him back in the team it wouldn’t be a distraction at all. It depends what the selectors and captain are thinking. Will he be fit enough?”

Clarke, one of several Australia batsmen worked over by Flintoff four years ago, said: “There’s a lot of respect there, he’s an amazing player. I’m as excited as I’ve ever been because it’s a huge Test.”

The 28-year-old Clarke has been in superb form this Ashes series and is the leading run-scorer on either side this campaign with 445 in six innings at an average of 89 and two centuries.

However, the stylish New South Wales right-hander said: “It’s 1-1, this is the important Test and this is the one we’re focused on.

“Personally it’s been good to score some runs, but it’s irrelevant now unless I make runs out here and contribute to the team’s success. Being the leading run-scorer but not winning the series is worthless.”

Clarke, who shrugged off concerns about his fitness following a stomach injury, said memories of four years ago were a motivating force.

“Once I arrived in England in the back of my mind there were memories from 05 I wish I could forget. But that’s what makes you a better player, you learn from your mistakes as an individual and a team. The guys that played in 05 will be really keen to make sure the results are a lot different come Monday.”

Clarke, who said his shot selection had improved in the first four years, said the state of the series would not affect Australia’s tactics in the early stages of the Oval Test.

“If we have no choice, then we have no choice. I’d rather 1-1 than a 2-1 loss, but our attitude won’t be that when we walk out to the ground on Thursday. We’ll be chasing one result and that’s to win.”

Australia’s 2005 team contained such greats as Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist, all of whom have now retired from cricket.

“There’s a lot less experience in our team compared to 05, but the one thing this side has shown over the last 12 months is that we do have the class, the enthusiasm, the desire to be as successful as any team that I’ve played in,” said Clarke of a side that won a Test series in South Africa in March.

“Yes, we probably don’t have the greats, at this stage of the guys’ careers, like we did on 05, but we’ve got everything else.

“Over a period of time you’ll see a lot of the guys in this side become very good cricketers, if not great cricketers.”

England have been given a huge boost ahead of next week’s Ashes decider with the announcement that key all-rounder Andrew Flintoff is set for a farewell to Test cricket at the Oval.

An England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) statement issued on Monday said swelling on his right knee injury had “significantly eased”.

Flintoff was ruled out of the fourth Test at Headingley, where England were thrashed inside three days by an innings and 80 runs, because of his longstanding knee injury.

England, with the series all square at 1-1, must win at the Oval – where the fifth Test starts on August 20 – to regain the Ashes, while Australia need only a draw to retain them.

But if their talismanic all-rounder is in the side, home fans will dream of a fairytale finale for both Flintoff and England.

An ECB statement said: “Andrew Flintoff’s right knee injury was reviewed today (Monday) by his specialist in conjunction with the ECB and Lancashire CCC medical teams.

“The advice received was the swelling in his knee has significantly eased following the decision by the England management team to rest him from the last Test match and that, subject to further rest and intensive treatment, he will be available for selection for the fifth npower Ashes Test at the Brit Oval.”

England took the controversial decision to leave out the 31-year-old all-rounder, the bowling star of their 115-run second Test win at Lord’s and top-scorer in the drawn third Test at Edgbaston, from their fourth Test side because of concerns his knee injury would prevent him seeing out the game.

In pace bowler and hard-hitting batsman Flintoff’s absence, England were humiliated at Headingley. To make matters worse, fast bowler James Anderson sustained a hamstring injury.

But the ECB said Flintoff’s Lancashire colleague was also set to be available at the Oval.

“James Anderson also underwent a scan on his hamstring, which was clear,” their statement said.

“As there is no evidence of a significant tear, it is anticipated that he will also be available for selection for next week’s final Test.”

Flintoff, the star of England’s 2005 Ashes series win, has had an injury-blighted career and he said before the match at Lord’s that this would be his final Test series.

Andrew Chandler, Flintoff’s agent, was adamant his client could have played at Headingley, telling Monday’s edition of The Times: “He told them he was fit enough to get through… They didn’t want him.

“What they didn’t take into account during Thursday’s practice was that there was no adrenalin. He was hurting at Lord’s but the adrenalin got him through. It would have got him through this week as well.”

There were only three days between the end of the Edgbaston Test and Friday’s start at Headingley and England captain Andrew Strauss told reporters after stumps on Sunday: “Hopefully we’re in a better situation to get a result earlier for the final Test.”

Flintoff’s absence always causes a headache for England as they must then decide whether to play an extra bowler or an additional batsman.

At Headingley, they brought in another quick in Stephen Harmison only to be dismissed for 102 in their first innings on Friday after Strauss won the toss and elected to bat.

“When you haven’t got an all-rounder in that number six or seven spot it is always a problem and one we are going to have to face up to because Flintoff is retiring from Test cricket,” England coach Andy Flower, speaking after the end of the Headingley Test and before Monday’s announcement, said.

“That is a problem because we seem to be either light on the batting side or the bowling side.

“We will have to make a decision for the Oval – if he is not fit – where we put our strength.”

Flintoff, despite missing out at Headingley, remains second in England’s series batting averages, behind Strauss, with 171 runs from five innings in three matches at an average of 42.75 and a best, made at Edgbaston, of 74.

But he has taken just seven wickets in the series at an expensive average of nearly 49, with most of those coming in his match-winning burst at Lord’s of five for 92.

Anderson is England’s joint leading wicket-taker in the series, alongside Stuart Broad, with 12 wickets at 38.91 and a best of five for 80 at Edgbaston.

But, hampered by his injury, Anderson’s 18 wicketless overs at Headingley cost 89 runs.

Australia quicks Ben Hilfenhaus (18), Peter Siddle (16) and Mitchell Johnson (16) have all taken more wickets in the series so far than Anderson and Broad.

England included Andrew Flintoff in their squad for the fourth Ashes Test in the hope that the all-rounder is fit to face Australia in what could be the series decider starting Friday.

England picked 14 players in its squad Tuesday, one more than for the drawn third Test, with pace bowler Steve Harmison or left-arm seamer Ryan Sidebottom seemingly set to replace Flintoff at Headingley if he succumbs to his troublesome ankle injury.

Flintoff was arguably the key player in the second Test win that put England 1-0 up but failed to take a wicket in the last match and labored through 11 overs on Monday’s final day.

With England hoping to regain the Ashes with victory in Leeds, national selector Geoff Miller said Flintoff’s chances of playing were good.

“I would say they’re always pretty good,” Miller said. “We know how determined he is to finish off his career. I’m sure he’ll want to play.

“We know full well that if he’s capable of doing the workload that the captain requires, he’ll be in the team.”

Harmison has been on standby to fill in for Flintoff for the past two matches but is struggling with blisters on his foot. Sidebottom is effectively in the squad to cover for his fellow bowler.

Team director Andy Flower, however, is hopeful that Flintoff, who is retiring from Test cricket after the fifth and final Test, will be fit.

“We will have to play it by ear again,” Flower said. “We’ve done that throughout the series. Continued wear and tear mean he probably is less likely (than for the last Test) but he’s a strong bloke. He’s got a strong body and a strong mind.”

England also dropped spinner Monty Panesar after he was left out of the last two Tests and added Warwickshire batsman Jonathan Trott and Sidebottom.

“It’s disappointing for Monty, but the records show over the years it’s not a spinning track,” Miller said.

The South African-born Trott, who averages 92.33 in 10 first-class county matches this season, is not in the squad as a replacement for the struggling Ravi Bopara but as an extra batsman.

“Ravi will bat at No.3 for us at Headingley, definitely,” Flower said. “Trott will be there if we want a sixth batter.”

While Australia could be bolstered by the return from injury of pace bowler Brett Lee and wicketkeeper Brad Haddin, Miller said the bigger than usual squad will give Flower and captain Andrew Strauss greater flexibility when they come to name the team after assessing the state of the pitch.

“We’ve got the option for an extra batter if necessary,” Miller said. “Jon’s been part of the performance squad for a year or more now. He’s done really well over the last year or so with the bat.

“The options are there for the captain and coach for what they want to go with on the morning of the game.”

Squad: Andrew Strauss (Captain), Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Matt Prior, Andrew Flintoff, Stuart Broad, Steve Harmison, James Anderson, Ryan Sidebottom, Graeme Swann, Graham Onions, Jonathan Trott.