We have learnt to use the word talisman. Sometimes even talismen. Not yet taliswoman or talisperson, but give it time. And certainly talismanic, though not yet talismania or talismaniacal. We needed a word to fit an emerging sporting concept, that of a player in a team sport who is more than the sum of his parts. A talisman is not just a good player, but everybody else plays better when he is around. When your talisman plays, no cause is ever lost, no opponent is ever insuperable and the impossible is for ever within your reach.

Conviction. That’s what it comes down to: a soul-deep, unshakeable belief that we can win the damn thing, no matter what anyone else says. A talisman inspires players and audience alike. The word entered sporting usage a couple of decades back and is now a loyal member of sport’s standing army of clichés (which must, of course, be avoided like the plague).

That’s why yesterday’s play at Lord’s was dominated by an absentee. That’s why all the prematch discussion had been about whether or not he should play, an argument settled with dismal inevitability by an injury - a side strain - to the talisman. Andrew Flintoff, hero of 2005, is crocked again.

But a tendency to injury is one of the talisman’s defining characteristics. Flintoff has had four operations on his ankle, the left one, which pulls all the G-forces in his thunderous delivery stride. Will it ever be right? “I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a niggling bit of doubt in my mind,” he said. “After four operations I think that’s inevitable. But I just hope that in July it will still be all right.”

Flintoff has just identified what may be considered the national sport of this country: hoping that the talisman will still be all right. Our best memories of Flintoff are tied up with the glorious Ashes summer of three years ago, when the combination of his venomous bowling, intimidatory batting and all-round combative nature set the tone (that’s what talismen are supposed to do) for an unforgettable England victory.

Our best hopes for Flintoff are tied up with the summer that follows this one, to the return of the Australians, snarling for revenge. Most of us fear that they may take it, too, in a form humiliating to England, but hope that with Flintoff “back to his best”, there will be music in the air once again.

’Twas ever thus with talispersons. They are defined by a glorious performance and we are forever longing for a repeat. Alas, it is hard to recreate a time of perfect inspiration, when mind and body and will were fused together to create a perfect sporting occasion. Besides, the talisman’s eternal proneness to injury constantly interferes with a nation’s hopes and dreams.

David Beckham made himself England’s talisman out of sheer love for the part. He was never a talisman for Manchester United; they worked on a completely different dynamic and Beckham was just an exceptional player in an exceptional side. But when he became England captain, he embraced the talismanic role with a method actor’s conviction. He, too, will be for ever defined by a single performance - and by his proneness to injury.

It was, of course, that extraordinary match against Greece in the World Cup qualifier of 2001 that will live for ever in our minds: the mad running, the determination to play all ten outfield positions at the same time and, at the end, the last-minute goal. It was the performance of a lifetime. We expect a talisman to produce such a thing every time he plays.

Beckham then invented a new part of the body and it has blighted the England football team ever since. The build-up to the World Cup of 2002 was all about Beckham’s metatarsal, and The Sun asked the nation to pray together over a photograph of the poorly foot. A talisman at the top of his game inspires all around him. The trouble is that a talisman struggling for form has the opposite effect. So England failed when they might have prevailed, losing in the quarter-finals against Brazil.

At the European Championship two years later, a new talisman emerged. Wayne Rooney burst from all restraint with the boisterousness of the baby elephant in the Blue Peter studio, as I excitedly wrote from a press box in Portugal. With the talismaniacal Rooney, England would surely be challenging for the big prize at the next World Cup in Germany.

Another World Cup, another talisman, another metatarsal. England were looking good until Rooney picked up the dreaded injury. A team who were built around Rooney could not function without him. England limped into the quarter-finals, where frustration and fury got the better of the half-fit Rooney and he was sent off for stomping an opponent in the crotch.

Are talismen really more prone to injury than the other sort? Or do we just notice them more? After all, Gary Neville also had a metatarsal injury in 2002 and no one asked the nation to pray for his feet. It seems to be a national tendency. We place overmuch hope in an individual and then it is a national disaster every time he suffers one of the sportsman’s routine twinges and tweaks.

Certainly we love to feel that we have been cursed, that the gods of sport are against us, that the days of glory will never come again as our talisman once again becomes the plaything of a vindictive fate. But sometimes - though rarely, rarely - there comes a time when the glory comes again.

Jonny Wilkinson kicked England to the rugby World Cup of 2003 with that unforgettable parabola, the dropped goal that sailed between the posts in the 100th minute. He then paid the price that all talismen must pay: blighted and benighted by injury and illness for three years.

But he came back and did so spectacularly. He was a part of England’s run for repeat glory last year. In a chaotic campaign, England went from the depths to the heights and Wilkinson was at the heart of the change, once again kicking a last-gasp dropped goal, this time against France in the semi-finals. It was as far as England got, but I remember sitting in the stadium in frank disbelief. To have witnessed this narrative unfold once seemed impossible enough, but to see it reprised was the stuff of fantasy.

That is what a talisman must do. His task is to take the stuff of sport and turn it into fantasy. He must take the base metal of real life and alchemise it into a thing of beauty and wonder. He must rise from the mud of the playing surface, take wing and become the stuff of dreams.

Small wonder we are so often disappointed with them. We constantly ask them to do the impossible. But then they have only themselves to blame. They started it all by doing the impossible. Alas, such miracles never last long and are seldom repeated, for the fact is that, at bottom, even a talisman is only a man.