Flintoff likely to miss one-day series
Updated on 27 May 2008
Injured Andrew Flintoff looks set to miss England's forthcoming one-day series against New Zealand.
National selector Geoff Miller is due to announce the one-day squad on Friday, ahead of one Twenty20 international and five one-day internationals that begin on June 13.
They had been hoping to pencil 30-year-old Flintoff into their plans after he was ruled out of the Test series against New Zealand when he suffered a side strain bowling against Durham on May 9.
But Flintoff insisted that he was only halfway through a six-week recovery programme, which would effectively rule him out of the one-day series.
He said: "I've not got a fixed date yet on when I can play and I think I'll know more once I start doing more running and then get back into the cricket again.
"These things have a history of taking six weeks and it will be three weeks on Thursday since I did it."
He added: "I don't know the exact dates of the one-day series but I've still got a few weeks before I'm fit so I'm not sure what the chances are of me being fit for that.
"I saw Geoff Miller and Peter Moores last week and they're not going to rush me back."
If Flintoff's recovery takes six weeks, his next available competitive cricket would be the final few matches of Lancashire's Twenty20 Cup qualifying group.
He would also be able to feature in the championship match against Sussex at Hove before the opening Test against South Africa at Lord's starting on July 11, which could be his first Test appearance for 18 months.
"I'd love to be involved against South Africa, but I think I learned my lesson from last time, building up and trying to play against New Zealand and it didn't happen," he said.
"I'm going to see how it goes. I'd love to play against South Africa obviously, but I'm not going to build it up too much because I don't want to get disappointed again."
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