Cricket: Flintoff's Injured Ankle Continues to Confound Medics

Everybody wants a fit Andrew Flintoff, as England's coach Peter Moores asserted after the thumping innings-win against the West Indies in the second Test at Headingley, but the trouble is that no one can decide what to do with an unfit one.

Flintoff's participation in Lancashire's championship match against Sussex at Hove today will only be decided this morning, after the latest in what has become a daily routine of fretful discussions. Physios, doctors, specialists and ancillary staff are scurrying around the giant frame of Flintoff like the Lilliputians over Gulliver.

Superficially, England do not have a care in the world. Michael Vaughan has banished his critics and his opposite number, the West Indies captain Ramnaresh Sarwan, is heading home - his side a symbol of the decline of Caribbean cricket - having been ruled out of the tour by the shoulder he damaged at Headingley.

Vaughan is ensconced again as England captain, showing no interest whatsoever at the information that he has now equaled Peter May as England's most successful Test captain and treating his detractors to the steely, almost dismissive, expressions of a man who knows that he is more valuable than they suppose.

But any sense of well-being encouraged by England's domination of this desperately mediocre West Indies side largely dissipates as soon as thoughts turn to their champion all-rounder. Flintoff is unfit, but nobody knows quite how much.

The target is to get him fit for today, or maybe next week, or maybe next month, or maybe again. He bowled in the nets at Hove for half an hour yesterday, looked 70% cheery and 30% concerned, and no-one was any the wiser.

Moores, whose early statements as England coach have been characterized by business-like efficiency, becomes less certain when he is speaking about Flintoff. On the one hand he would like him to be back for the Old Trafford Test in eight days' time and he knows that Flintoff wants to play. On the other, he tacitly accepts that a third operation cannot be ruled out.

Basically since Flintoff complained of worsening pain during Lancashire's championship match against Hampshire, and another scan failed to settle the debate whether it was the old injury flaring up or a new problem, Moores hasn't got a clue.

"Everybody wants a fit Andrew Flintoff," he said. "It's been quite tough for the medical guys to decide the best way to get him right. They are guided to some extent by the pain he has got and then somewhere along the line hopefully it will be decided that it is going to go away, or is manageable, or we will have to do something else. It is a bit of a daily thing at the moment.

"The challenge was to decide would the injury go away over time. What we do know is they are giving it their maximum attention. There is no doubt that he has a troublesome ankle. They are not sure if it is something new. He is seeing all the top people and they are working with it. It is getting better but whether it will be fit for Old Trafford is hard to tell.

"I know he wants to play so I will push the medical team to do the best they can to get him to play, but if it's injured, it's injured - if it's fit, it's fit. That's what you have a medical team for."

While England and Flintoff wait for his next move, the West Indian captain knows his. Sarwan's Test leadership has lasted only two Tests since he replaced Brian Lara following the feeble World Cup campaign. He injured his shoulder while diving in the field, but he could easily have done it by shrugging in despair at what the West Indies do next. He will not be fit for another six weeks and will miss the three one-day internationals that follow the remaining two Tests, the final one of which starts at the Riverside on June 15.

The vice-captain Daren Ganga deputised for Sarwan when he was unavailable at Headingley but no official replacement has been named, while a batting replacement is expected to be named imminently.