If he wants to bat in the top 6, then he should be scoring hundreds in county cricket. Prior to his latest injury his last few innings were generally awful. He was a walking wicket, trying to crash almost every ball out of the ground. All I would like to see is for him to go back to what made him so good, going back to building an innings and then take an attack apart. If he can do that he will score hundreds and will deserve his place back.

I concur with Milo that in many ways Flintoff has to rebuild his career, the only way to do that is runs on the board and wickets under his belt in county cricket, so that we know he is ready for Tests again.