Flintoff's folly frustrates Atherton

LONDON: Michael Atherton said the fact England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff was in the news for missing the team bus during a squad weekend away was an unwanted "distraction" ahead of the Ashes.

Ex-England captain Flintoff, 31, joining up with the squad for the first time after several months out with a knee injury, missed the team bus for Saturday's visit to the World War One trenches at Ypres in Belgium.

"Andrew Flintoff is back and the talk, once again, is not of cricket but of discipline, timekeeping and alcohol," former England captain Atherton, now cricket correspondent of The Times, wrote of his fellow Lancastrian in Wednesday's edition of the British daily.

"It is a distraction that nobody needs right now, in the week before the Ashes (which start in Cardiff on July 8)."

It was not the first time the 31-year-old Flintoff had courted controversy for his behaviour.

During the 2007 World Cup he was dropped from the England side and stripped of the vice-captaincy as punishment for an alcohol-fuelled night which ended with him capsizing a pedalo in the early hours of the morning in St Lucia.

Prior to that Flintoff, when captain of England, was sent away from training by then coach Duncan Fletcher after turning up to a practice session the worse for wear in Australia during a 2006/07 Ashes series his side lost 5-0.

Atherton said this latest incident had placed Hugh Morris, the managing director of England cricket, in a tricky position as he batted away questions as to whether Flintoff had been drinking the night before missing the bus. "If it does emerge that Flintoff was drinking, Morris will be made to look both foolish and economical with the truth. Thanks, Fred."

Atherton was also unimpressed by current England captain Andrew Strauss's comment at Edgbaston on Tuesday that Flintoff was not alone among the squad in having problems with time-keeping. "It makes England sound not like the national team made up of heroes but a team full of adolescents who cannot manage themselves properly."

Atherton said the whole incident would cast a cloud over England's Ashes warm-up match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston which started on Wednesday.