Cricket: Flintoff and Strauss Close to Withdrawing From Tour

England's talismanic allrounder Andrew Flintoff is expected to announce today that he will follow the example set by his close friend Steve Harmison and withdraw from the one-day squad for the tour of Zimbabwe in November.

And as last night's deadline approached for players to make themselves available for selection, Andrew Strauss admitted that Flintoff was not alone in having misgivings about playing cricket in a country that is being torn apart by Robert Mugabe.

"All the players have deep-rooted moral problems with going on the tour," he told BBC Online. "It's not an easy situation for us to be in. The England and Wales Cricket Board is going to be sending out a cricket team to Zimbabwe - it's just a question of which personnel go. I can only speak for myself and I haven't made up my mind yet."

Strauss's comments were another twist in the build-up to the announcement of the 14-man squad, which will be named on the ECB website at 2.30pm tomorrow. And they followed newspaper speculation about a disagreement in the England hierarchy concerning selection policy.

Whereas the coach Duncan Fletcher is reportedly keen to rest key players before the five-Test tour of South Africa starting in December, the chairman of the ECB, David Morgan, is keen for the selectors to pick their best side - including Flintoff, who is known to have strong reservations about making the trip. England's standing in the international community plummeted last year when they withdrew from their World Cup fixture in Zimbabwe, and Morgan does not want to risk further censure by sending an understrength team.

David Graveney, the England chairman of selectors, yesterday played down rumours of a rift and insisted that Harmison remained the only player to have indicated that he would not be going to Zimbabwe.

But in an allusion to the bone spur that prevented Flintoff from bowling during the NatWest Series in June and July, Graveney said that the make-up of the side "is subject to fitness, and a number of players have been carrying injuries this summer.

"The core players have been on the road playing constant international cricket for a long time. The tour of Zimbabwe gives us an opportunity to rotate a little more." He added that the squad might contain "one or two" surprises.

The generalities in which Graveney spoke might be intended to leave the door open for Flintoff and other senior players to opt out at the last moment.

And yesterday it was clear that a complex situation remained unresolved. "The selectors are still talking with the management committee of the ECB about the make-up of the squad," said the players' representative Richard Bevan.

Finding out exactly who thinks what has not been made easier by the fact that the England captain Michael Vaughan has asked his players to toe the ECB line and make themselves available because of the risk of ICC sanctions.

One report yesterday claimed that Vaughan had been unhappy that Harmison had jumped the gun by announcing his withdrawal from the tour on moral grounds after England's win over Sri Lanka in the ICC Champions Trophy nine days ago. It quoted a team insider as saying: "Harmy kicked a hole in the dam and raised the possibility of division within the camp."

But Vaughan will at least be comforted by the knowledge that Marcus Trescothick, who hit 104 in England's nail-biting two-wicket defeat by West Indies in the final of the Champions Trophy on Saturday, has publicly declared himself available to make the trip, although he admitted that it was "hard to judge" whether England's top players could do with a break before the South Africa series.

"There are several weeks now until the start of the Zimbabwe trip," he said. "That should be a long enough break, but we'll only really know at the end of the South Africa tour."

The ECB has said all along that no individual would be penalised for opting out of the Zimbabwe tour for moral reasons. The ICC's hearing into alleged racism in Zimbabwe cricket, scheduled to start on Wednesday, may yet take the issue out of the board's hands. But if Flintoff and others do pull out, the ECB may have to reiterate its commendable public stance through gritted teeth.