'The next time I get injured, I will be gone' - Flintoff

While rumours of his future career moves continue to swirl, Andrew Flintoff has admitted that he is one injury away from calling it quits. Flintoff is to spend the next three months in Dubai to aid his recovery from the latest operation to his right knee and make a return to England's one-day team as their star allrounder, but did not mince words when assessing himself.

"The next time I get injured, I will be gone," he was quoted as saying by PA Sport. "Realistically, with the operation I've had, I have a limited shelf-life. I'll try to draw that out for as long as I can.

"But if the knee or anything else goes, that will pretty much be it. I've been injured since I was 13. Me and bowling have never actually gone together."

Flintoff, 31, retired from Test cricket at the end of England's Ashes-winning summer, and 24 hours after helping them regain the urn he underwent arthroscopy to his injured right knee. He admitted in a newspaper interview last month hat there is a chance he may never play again, but his main ambition remains to play in another World Cup and has targeted the one-day leg of England's tour of Bangladesh next February as a realistic date for a comeback.

His latest bout of rehabilitation suffered a minor setback in early September when it was revealed that he was afflicted by deep vein thrombosis in his right calf, though the ECB was quick to release a statement describing it as "a common complication of surgery".