Leave Flintoff alone, says ex-Lancashire mate Stuart Law

London, July 8 (ANI): Former Lancashire captain Stuart Law believes that England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff should not be a topic of discussion and that the ECB should value the cricketing giant who is in their midst.

Flintoff is public property again and an expectant nation is at loggerheads over whether to delight in his humanity or to suspect that his ill-timed lapse into unprofessionalism so close to the Australia series is a harbinger of doom in the Tests that lie ahead.

But Law, who played one Test and 54 ODIs for Australia, sees it differently.

"People tag people. They do that to Freddie. He has celebrated an Ashes victory and not many Englishmen have done that. He is a young man who enjoys a beer as every young man does, but you will not see a guy work harder. His detractors, mate, I'd like to see them live his life for a few weeks, to do all that rehab every day to fight back from his injuries, to receive a phone call from his physio saying 'we need you here, now', and to put himself through it again. They couldn't cope for more than a few minutes," The Guardian quoted Law, as saying.

"Freddie is the most selfless man I have ever met. He doesn't care about himself. He cares about others. He will have been distraught enough because he had let his teammates down. I have seen him just after injury and he is destroyed, heartbroken and he feels that he is letting everybody down if he can't play like he his supposed to. He has learned to cope with that now but it has taken him a long time," he added.

Law, now on a one-day contract at Derbyshire.

Lancashire coach Moores is too polite to advise England coach Andy Flower.

But he did predict that England could anticipate Flintoff at full throttle:

"Fred doesn't hold back a lot. You wouldn't want that. That's not how he plays. You want him to play full out. That's what makes him different. He has his ability to raise his game for big games. One of the big challenges is can you get it out of you when you really want to? Fred has shown he can do that," said Moores. (ANI)