Playing in the one day international series in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe was never an option for England’s cricketing star Andrew Flintoff, he revealed on Wednesday.
Flintoff had officially been left out of the squad so he could rest but the indomitable Lancashire all-rounder, and the biggest draw in the England side, refused to lie down and contrary to what the selectors had announced on Tuesday said he wouldn’t have gone anyway.
”I told captain Michael Vaughan and coach Duncan Fletcher last week that I wasn’t available,” he told The Sun.
”Nothing’s changed since those meetings and problems we had in Cape Town before the start of the World Cup,” added Flintoff, who joined close friend and England’s leading paceman Steve Harmison in boycotting the tour.
Flintoff said he would have followed Harmison’s stance of opting out of the five-match trip on moral grounds as a protest against Mugabe’s leadership, which has been accused of flagrant abuses of human rights.
”From everything I read and heard, things have got worse in Zimbabwe,” added Flintoff, who was joined on the sidelines by vice-captain Marcus Trescothick though he has not spoken out in the same vein.
”Most of us have seen images from the African country and the situation looks horrific.
”I didn’t want to go then — so why should I want to go now?”
And there could be more absentees from the party as veteran pace bowler Darren Gough revealed that he could also bow out if things worsen in the African country.
”If the plane had left this morning I’d have gone,” he said.
”But there’s still a long way to go and a lot of things can happen.
”There are a lot more conversations people have to have and they’ll be going on over the next couple of months.”
Even Vaughan, who was offered the chance of a rest, said he was not happy with the political situation in Zimbabwe but did not want to shirk a captain’s responsibilities. – Sapa-AFP