Tomorrow's world

Chubby Chandler, Andrew Flintoff's manager, says Freddie is considering whether to accept the offer of an ECB one-day contract or go freelance. First he needs to see how his limbs shape up after his most recent operation.

I will add two points to what Mr. Chandler says. I doubt if Freddie will play for England again and if he does turn into a gun-for-hire professional there will be any number of guys ready to join him.

I have thought for a couple of years - since IPL and the other T20 leagues hit the headlines - that this is the way forward for a talented professional cricketer.

The new career structure reads something like this: join a county, state or province in the your teens, progress to your Test side, play for a few years at international level and then, probably in your mid-20s, offer your services to the highest bidder.

Stuart Broad is an obvious candidate for such a path but before long AB De Villiers, almost every young New Zealand and Zimbabwean cricketer, Adil Rashid, and most of the players in the Indian sub-continent, will want to try their luck in the new bish-bash.

Good luck to them. It is no use crying over spilt Ashes; five days devoted to a single match is so very not 21st century.

Lead the way, Freddie and watch ECB and the rest complain about the end of loyalty, the breakdown in traditional values and the end of life as our grandparents used to know it.

It will be yet another case of me saying I Told You So But No-one Listened. So what else is new. T20 played by freelance cricketers in 25 matches a year, funded by happy TV companies and even happier sponsors and watched by millions.