Out!

Deal with it. Andrew Freddie Flintoff will not play in the second Test, no matter how many times the ECB magic medical men proclaim that they will "assess" and "monitor" his injury.

In fact the selectors are damned if they do -because that will impede his play in the remainder of the series - and damned if they don't - because that will be seen as a serious blow to England's chance of winning at Lord's.

My radio tells me that he has had a scan and a cortizone injection. I hope the scan shows very little wrong but I wish they had found another method of curing his knee because in a long life in sport I have never heard players speak well of cortizone and met many who curse it.

I guess those backroom boys are trying everything in order to get him on the field on Thursday. Or maybe they just want to show they are trying everything.

Instead of crying let us - and here again I am forced to reach for the ECB Book of Obligatory Cliches - find the positives in this situation. My statistically-minded pals tells me she believes James Anderson and Stuart Broad bowl better when Flintoff is absent; since someone remembered the word "talisman" his shadow has become too large for any young paceman to blossom alongside him.

So, if Steve Harmison, the biggest Mr. If in cricket, bowls as he has for the Lions and Durham and the younger quicks grow up, Flintoff's absence may yet bring joy.

Speaking of blossoming, where is Andy Flower? I saw him at Cardiff, his face set in the same sort of protest pose that Ricky Ponting did not achieve until the end of the match but since the draw, not a word.

Strange!