Andrew Flintoff was the center of attention during England’s stunning victory over Australia in the concluding Ashes affair this August. Flintoff, however, decided to retire from Test cricket having played a total of 79 Tests for England. Pending the operation on his right knee injury, Flintoff had hinted on plans of pursuing a full-time ODI career.
English players’ contracts were set to be reviewed at the end of September. Speaking about his future, Flintoff said, “Over the next week it will probably unfold a bit more clearly, what I’m thinking and what they are thinking. But at this moment contracts are the furthest thing from my mind. I’m booked in for an op and I can’t stop thinking about that. And then ‘Rooster’ (Dave Roberts, Flintoff’s personal physio) is getting married on Saturday, so that’s the next biggest day in my life. Beefy (Ian Botham) is best man and I’m a page boy, which is quite fitting.”
Flintoff has now been awarded an incremental contract by the ECB citing his future contributions for the English side. However, his knee surgery would see him sidelined for a minimum of 6 months. The English skipper is however seriously considering a freelancer cricket career as per his manager Andrew Chandler. Flintoff has also not yet written off the option of T20 contracts.
According to Chandler, “He’ll play for Chennai [Super Kings in the IPL], he might play for an Australian team, a South African team, maybe one in the West Indies. If he hadn’t have been injured he would have probably played in December-January in Australia. And then at the end of January, early February in South Africa. I was already negotiating with them. We were negotiating with South Australia and the Durban team, the Nashua Dolphins. And there’s been an offer from Northern Transvaal [Northerns] as well.”
As of now, Flintoff will fly to Dubai for a period of 3 months’ rehabilitation from his operated right knee and hopes to be totally fit for England’s ODI against Bangladesh in February next year.
ECB’s intention behind giving Flintoff an incremental contract was his potential to aid England in the limited-over cricket while Flintoff himself has stated that he intends to play until the 2015 World Cup. Andy Flower however has specified that English players could be a part of the IPL for just 3 weeks post the Bangladesh tour.
Over Flintoff’s dilemma, Chandler commented, “I’m not saying he’s not going to play for England because he probably will do. But he’s definitely going to play for different teams during the year. The England contract does not state anything about not being able to play IPL or anything like that.”
The English national coach had expressed his concerns over the players’ workload when the announcement of the contracts was made as participation in leagues (like the IPL) still posing as a major issue. However, considering Flintoff’s heath, the English national could also lose more than half of the $1.55 million fee from IPL if he went to Bangladesh. Ouch!