If anything, it shows how desperate, short sighted and foolish the ECB were for giving him a contract in the first place. Now he’s chucked it in their face, how silly do they look? Even Flintoff himself said he was “flattered” and wasn’t “expecting” a contract. Not only did the ECB offer him the contract but they are also paying for Dave Roberts the physio to help Flintoff  recover in Dubai. Surely the ECB should have only offered this if Flintoff was contractually bound otherwise why does he deserve it? A board paying for a physio for a freelance cricketer? Crazy.

As one of the reasons for rejecting the contract, Flintoff went onto to say “at this stage of my career I don’t think I need to be told when to play and when to rest,” if that was the case in the past, then you wasn’t professional enough my friend.

Flintoff’s retirement from Test cricket meant that the ECB could not award him a full central contract. The question you have to ask is if he was given a full contract with no Tests, rather than an incremental one, would he have decided to reject it?

Flintoff has his supporters of course. I don’t agree with Andrew Miller’s argument on cricinfo that “Flintoff shouldn’t be ostracised for his decision to go freelance. He is belatedly realising his own worth, and doesn’t owe England an outstanding debt of gratitude”

No outstanding debt of gratitude? Are you sure about that? What own worth? The guys been injured most of  his career,  something the ECB had to deal with.

Not only that,  he would have been  the main cause of an unsettled England side during this period. How many selection dilemmas has he caused because of his injury problems? How many players have come in to the national side not knowing how long they’d be given before being dropped just because Flintoff is fit again? This game has made him a millionaire and the support of his board has a lot do with this yet if you look at what he has contributed in return, it’s not great. “Own worth”? Inflated self worth more like it.

For the sake of consistency of team selection, England should now close this chapter and completely ignore him. It’s time to move on.

The scary thing is, though he may have been the first to go freelance, something tells me he won’t be the last. Cricket is fast becoming unrecognisable.

Andrew Flintoff:

“Since 2005 I’ve had two years when I’ve done nothing but rehab from one injury or another”
Andrew Flintoff, July 2009

Flintoff was in such a state that he could not throw properly. He had to pass the ball to the bloke next to him to do so. And when it came to trying to catch the ball I honestly thought I was going to hurt him, so uncoordinated was he. I was fuming and stopped the practice early.
Duncan Fletcher reveals his anger with Andrew Flintoff, the then-England captain, over his conduct at a fielding practice during the 2006-07 Ashes
Oct 30, 2007

I still do the same things I’ve always done. I go and have a pint with my mates down the pub, I go horse racing and do various other things I’ve always done, so my life hasn’t changed too dramatically.
Andrew Flintoff confirms that weight loss and Ashes glory can’t change the Freddie of old
May 12, 2006

Below is a list of the value of the contract in each category and it makes for some interesting reading.

Category A Rs 250,000 or £1,840 per month, £22,080 annually.
Category B Rs 175,000 or £1,290 per month, £15,480 annually.
Category C Rs 100,000 or £735 per month, £8,820 annually.

Though they were all pretty surprising, I was most surprised by the earnings of those who would fall into category C. Many of the players who were involved in Pakistan’s recent success and look to be in and around the team for some time to come, fall into this category of just £735 a month. This includes; Rana Naved, Fawad Alam, Saeed Ajmal and Rao Iftikhar. Here in the U.K, someone working at McDonald’s could earn more than that.

Inversely, there are some players in the top category who have either not played at all recently or have demonstrated that category A is one place they should not be. For example; Shoaib Akhtar, Salman Butt and Danish Kaneria.

Baffled? Well so am I. I would love to ask the meritocracy that is the PCB, how they decided on who goes in which category. Salim Altaf was quoted at the time (January 2009) saying: “The central contracts were devised by coach Intikhab Alam, manager Yawar Saeed and chief selector Abdul Qadir and the main criteria was seniority of the players”. Why seniority? Would any other professional organisation in the world, let alone cricket board, do this?

And if it was decided on performances, how do they explain Danish Kaneria? In 2008, Kaneria was in category C but without playing a single game for his nation, he found himself in category A this time around. I have nothing against Danish but I believe for someone who plays Tests only, he should be in category B at the most.

Obviously, this is just the basic wage as added to this would be match fees which players would receive for participating in a game and any awards for individual performances. Yet, this only exacerbates the situation for those in category C as they are less likely to take part in a game and earn individual awards anyway. The gap between categories C and B definitely needs to be smaller.

Taking into account the cost of living in Pakistan, there are still boards around the cricket world who take much better care of their players. I can now see why earning a better living through unofficial leagues such as the ICL did and would continue to appeal to some of Pakistan’s cricketers.

Category A (£22,080 annually)
Shoaib Akhtar, Younis Khan, Danish Kaneria, Shahid Afridi, Kamran Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Misbah-ul-Haq, Salman Butt, Umar Gul

Category B (£15,480 annually)
Yasir Hameed, Faisal Iqbal, Mohammad Hafeez, Sohail Tanvir

Category C (£8,820 annually)
Rao Iftikhar Anjum, Abdur Rehman, Yasir Arafat, Fawad Alam, Khurram Manzoor, Saeed Ajmal, Sohail Khan, Wahab Riaz, Samiullah Khan Niazi, Sarfraz Ahmad, Nasir Jamshed, Umar Amin, Azhar Ali, Abdul Rauf, Rana-Naved