Andrew Flintoff eyes trophies after agreeing new Lancashire deal

Short game: Andrew Flintoff will play one-day cricket for Lancashire
10 April 2012

Andrew Flintoff is targeting silverware with Lancashire after agreeing a new three-year contract with the county.

The 31-year-old, who is recovering from knee surgery, made his first-class debut for the red rose team in 1995.

He now wants to add to the two one-day trophies he has already won in the English domestic game after rejecting the offer of an incremental central contract with England to see out his career as a freelance limited-overs player.

Flintoff said: "To sign a new deal is what I wanted to do. I've played for the club since I was nine and I don't want to play anywhere else in county cricket.

"I've got personal ambitions but I've got team ambitions as well. I've won two trophies at Lancashire. I've been at this club a long time and I want to add to that.

"Personally, yes I do want to be the best one-day player in the world, it's something which I feel I can do. Just playing the two forms of the game I can focus all my attentions on trying to be that player."

Flintoff is targeting a return to action early in the new year and believes he is making good progress after being sidelined since the end of the Ashes series in the summer.

"First and foremost I need to get back on the cricket field, hopefully that will be sooner rather than later," he said.

"I'm just under 12 weeks since the op. I'll probably know more at the 12-week stage, I'll see the surgeon, he'll re-scan me and he will have a better idea of how the operation has gone and where I'm at with it.

"He is pretty confident, as am I. So far it's just been doing a lot of the boring stuff. After I've had the scan I can build back up to running and hopefully get in the nets and start practising some time after Christmas."

Lancashire head coach Peter Moores is hopeful the county will get the best of Flintoff once he is back to full fitness.

He said: "He's now not centrally-contracted so there is more chance we will actually see more of him on the field.

"We are looking forward to him playing plenty of one-day cricket next year and making us very effective as a side."

Asked whether Flintoff's injury record meant a three-year deal was a risk, Moores added: "I don't think so. He is still in rehab is to get fit but it's all going to schedule at the moment. The operation he has had has had a very good success rate.

"Fred said to start with his target was (the England tour of) Bangladesh just after Christmas but that might be a little bit early, and internationally then there is the Twenty20 World Cup."

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