By Scott Heinrich BBC Sport

Aussies hatch Flintoff plot

Fans love them and bowlers hate them. They are big-hitters, the major suppliers of the adrenalin rush that is the essence of one-day cricket.

The Champions Trophy semi-final between England and Australia will showcase two of the world's most brutal biffers of a cricket ball, Andrew Flintoff and Andrew Symonds.

In cricketing parlance, when players like Flintoff and Symonds hit a ball, it stays hit.

The two Andrews like to do their scoring from the crease. Why scamper through for a quick three when you can double it with a muscular thrash over long-on?

It is conventional wisdom that the bowler can dictate terms with the quality of his delivery. But through sheer strength and improvisation, messrs Flintoff and Symonds take the initiative away from them.

Let's look at Flintoff first.

As well as providing bar staff with impromptu lunch breaks, he sets the pulse racing - who can forget Freddie holding his shattered bat aloft like a trophy against South Africa last summer? Even equipment is scared of him.

Of the players to have hit more than 40 sixes in their one-day career, only Flintoff boasts an average of greater than one per innings.

MOST ODI SIXES 1: S Jayasuriya 185 in 319 inns (Strike rate: 0.57) 2: S Afridi 168 in 179 (0.93) 3: S Ganguly 164 in 253 (0.64) 4: S Tend'kar 142 in 330 (0.43) 5: C Cairns 131 in 174 (0.75) 6: V Richards 126 in 167 (0.75) 22: A Flintoff 72 in 69 (1.04)

The leader, Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya, has blasted 185 in 319 innings at an average of 0.57, while Flintoff's 72 maximums have come from just 69 knocks.

Flintoff's explosiveness at the crease can be gauged by the fact Mohammad Azharuddin played four times as many matches but hit just five more sixes and Steve Waugh struck four fewer from 209 more opportunities.

Even Aussie shotmakers Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting, whose unbeaten 140 in last year's World Cup final included eight sixes, manage fewer than 0.5 sixes per innings.

There have been many great moments, but perhaps Flintoff's greatest one-day innings came against West Indies at Lord's this summer, where his 104-ball 123 included seven towering maximums.

Symonds has never attracted the same level of hype, and his record of 38 sixes in 76 one-day knocks does not bear comparison.

But the Brummie-cum-Queenslander has been pulverising cricket balls for the entirety of his career.

Symonds was man-of-the-match in Australia's win over New Zealand

As a 20-year-old playing for Gloucestershire against Glamorgan, Symonds detonated a record 16 sixes in the first innings and 20 in the match.

And he has continued to merrily bludgeon first-class attacks for Queensland, and in more recent years for Kent in England.

Symonds has been able to feed his addiction through Twenty20 cricket.

How does 96 not out off 37 balls against Hampshire and 112 off 43 against Middlesex sound? You don't score like that by nurdling.

Years back, at a time when he could probably have walked into the England side, Symonds chose to stick it out and try to get into the first team of his adopted homeland.

His first four years as an Australia cricketer were mixed - he averaged only 23 in one-day cricket and couldn't get into the Test side.

But he turned his career on its head in one match against Pakistan at the World Cup last year, and typically he used the long handle to do it.

Coming in with Australia 86-4, Symonds casually carted 143 runs in 125 balls with 18 boundaries and two sixes. Needless to say, it was a match-winning knock.

That's what the two Andrews do - they win matches. And they do it in a manner which makes the rest of us feel very humble.