LANCASHIRE coach Peter Moores says the decision to rule Andrew Flintoff out for the rest of the season does not signal the end of his career and will give the all-rounder the best chance of making a return to the game.

Flintoff has not played since England beat Australia at The Oval to win the Ashes last summer, undergoing two knee operations.

He was due to return to action with Lancashire’s second XI earlier this week, but the decision was taken to put back his comeback.

The setback also means the all-rounder will not feature for the Chennai Super Kings in the Champions League.

Former England coach Moores said: “He needs more conditioning work on his body. A lot of work on this type of injury is linked to making other parts of the body strong enough to protect the knee. There is a concern that if Fred came back and it didn’t work then it would really be his last chance.

“When he started to net with us the challenge was would the knee stand up to competitive cricket? It’s okay having a bat in the nets for 20 minutes but if it’s a four-day game it is six and a half hours in the field and a warm-up for maybe an hour to an hour and a half before.

“Even Twenty20 games, that Fred has a leaning towards playing, are very aggressive. So the decision came that he needed a bigger window, rather than trying to rush it through to get some cricket with us.

“He is 30-odd, has had a great career and knows that when he comes back he will not want to have to go through all the rehab again, it’s nine or 10 months of gym work and it is very hard. So he has got to come back and make sure that hard work was worthwhile.”

TOM SMITH produced a sparkling all-round performance and Steven Croft weighed in with a career-best 93 not out to help Lancashire seal an eight-wicket Clydesdale Bank 40 victory over Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay. Smith followed up figures of three for 49 with a fine half-century as Lancashire registered their fourth win in the tournament by chasing down 212 to win.