It's a struggle with Ganguly - Flintoff

Andrew Flintoff has said in his autobiography that Sourav Ganguly wasn't easy to work with © Getty Images

Andrew Flintoff, the England allrounder, has said that he thought it was hard to work with Sourav Ganguly, the India captain, and terms him an awkward character.

In an extract from Being Freddie, his autobiography published this week, Flintoff spoke of when Ganguly was his Lancashire team-mate in 2000. "Ganguly just didn't work out at all," he wrote. "You can accept a player not playing well, because we all have our ups and downs in our career, but he just didn't want to get involved."He wasn't interested in the other players and it became a situation where it was 10 players and Ganguly in the team. He turned up as if he was royalty - it was like having Prince Charles on your side. There were rumours he was asking people to carry his coffin for him, although he never asked me.

"I've been out for dinner with him [Ganguly] since that season a couple of times on England duty, the most notable time being that winter in Kenya for the ICC Trophy," Flintoff continued. "We went out to a little curry house he had found and saw the umpire Venkatraghavan sitting over the other side of the room. Straight away he got up and went over to talk to him for 20 minutes while I sat like a spare part eating my curry on my own. We say hello to each other now and we are pleasant to each other, but it doesn't go any further than that. I don't dislike the bloke, but it's a struggle with him."