ECB quiet on Flintoff surgery report

The ECB has refused to comment on a newspaper report that Andrew Flintoff will undergo major knee surgery straight after the final Ashes Test that will put him out of action until next season.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Flintoff is scheduled for the operation on Tuesday, despite having been named in England's one-day squads to face Ireland and Australia after the Ashes.

"We are making no further comment on his medical condition," said an ECB spokesman. "We are leaving him to concentrate on the task at hand, which is on the field. As we have said previously an operation remains an option at the end of the series. He will be reassessed at the end of this current match."

Flintoff has been severely hampered by his injured right knee during the Ashes after he first damaged it at the IPL before aggravating it at Cardiff during the first Test. He managed to play at Lord's and Edgbaston, but was forced to miss the fourth Test at Headingley after Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower decided he wouldn't make it through the game despite Flintoff insisting he was fit.

According to the newspaper, Flintoff will undergo the same micro-fracture procedure that Michael Vaughan had in 2006 after his knee gave way on the tour of India. It took Vaughan more than a year to recover and the expectation is that Flintoff could be out of action for as long as nine months.

After the final Test against Australia, Flintoff will concentrate on his one-day career but this latest surgery would rule him out of the Champions Trophy, the tours of South Africa and Bangladesh, the IPL and the World Twenty20 in West Indies next April.

"My future now is Twenty20 and one-day internationals. I want to be the best one-day international player in the world and not playing Test cricket will let me concentrate on that," Flintoff told Sky Sports before The Oval Test. "I still want to play two more World Cups and there is still plenty for me to go on. I have got lots of ambition and want to play for England as much as I can in the short form of the game."