Flintoff Thinks About New Career

Flintoff is giving serious consideration to becoming a freelancer cricketer

Flintoff may decide against signing a contract with the England and Wales Cricket Board, a move which would threaten his international future.

Former Woodworm sponsored player Flintoff, 31, has retired from Tests but has been offered a lower-tier "incremental" contract to play limited-overs internationals for England. However he is keen to play Twenty20 cricket in domestic leagues worldwide.

The all-rounder will spend the next few days in Dubai discussing with his agent whether or not to sign the ECB deal. Flintoff gave up Test cricket after helping England win back the Ashes in August, and is currently on crutches recovering from recent knee surgery that will rule him out of cricket for the next six months.

His agent Andrew "Chubby" Chandler is flying to Flintoff's temporary base in the United Arab Emirates on Monday where the two will discuss the pros and cons of an ECB tie-in.
And Flintoff's manager Andrew Chandler admits as much, having already attempted to engineer moves to the Southern Hemisphere this winter.

"He'll play for Chennai in the Indian Premier League (IPL), he might play for an Australian team, a South African team, maybe one in the West Indies," Chandler said.

"If he hadn't 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 as well.

"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 news could have major ramifications for Lancashire, who currently pay his wages, however, as Lightning chiefs would hope to have their star man available for the county season, which runs from mid-April to the end of September.