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Flintoff returned for a couple of games with Lancashire, in preparation for the West Indies tour of England but he re-injured his ankle and was ruled out for the first Test which started on 17 May 2007. Having undergone another operation on the troublesome ankle, he missed the whole Test and one-day series against the West Indies, and was also ruled out for the subsequent Test series with India. He returned for the 4th ODI on 30 August. Flintoff missed England's two narrow defeats to India in the fifth and sixth ODIs before taking three for 45 in the seventh, helping England to win the series four-three with a seven-wicket victory. Following several games for Lancashire, Flintoff returned for England in the first of seven ODIs against India on 21 August 2007. He bowled seven overs and ended with figures of one for twelve in England's 104-run victory. He hit an eventful nine runs during the second ODI; however, while fielding, he injured his knee and sat out England's 42-run victory in the third ODI.

His ankle injury recurred during the end of the 2007 season, and, although he played in the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, he did not accompany the England squad to Sri Lanka, and a fourth operation made it highly unlikely that he would play again before the summer of 2008, missing both the Sri Lankan Test Series and the 2008 tour of New Zealand. Flintoff remained "upbeat" about his career, however.


He was back in action for Lancashire early in the 2008 season, but a side strain ruled him out of contention for the home series against New Zealand. After again returning to action in county cricket, he was recalled to the England squad for the second Test against South Africa. He took his 200th Test wicket in the Third Test, trapping Neil McKenzie lbw for 72. Flintoff bowled consistently against the South Africans, but South African coach Mickey Arthur felt that he was too defensive. His batting also began to show promise as he consistently made starts, before being moved back up to bat at six when Kevin Pietersen took over as captain. In the following one day series, Flintoff was an important player for England, leading Pietersen to describe him as "a superstar". Flintoff scored 78 in both the first and the third matches — he was not required to bat in the second — as well as 31 not out off twelve balls in the fourth, whilst taking three wickets in the same match. This led many pundits to speculate that Flintoff might just be back to his best. He won Man of the Series in the ODI home series against South Africa, where England won four-nil: the last match was washed out. He was both the top run-scorer and the top wicket-taker of that series. Still, though, his want of consistency frustrated the pundits. "Flintoff," wrote Peter Roebuck some time later, "is a fine cricketer who has never quite worked out how he takes wickets or score runs. Torn between hitting and playing, pounding and probing, he has performed below his highest capabilities."


On England's tour of India Flintoff started the series well. In the first warm-up match against the Mumbai Cricket Association, he scored exactly 100. It was his first century for England since the Fourth Test of the 2005 Ashes. His batting did not follow with similar successes in India and the West Indies, but his bowling remained strong, with a dozen wickets in the Caribbean at under thirty apiece, followed by a hat-trick in the final ODI series, becoming only the third English bowler ever to do so.


In February 2009, the Chennai Super Kings of the Indian Premier League bought Flintoff for USD 1,550,000 — a good $600,000 above his base price of $950,000. This makes him the highest-ever-paid IPL player, alongside compatriot Kevin Pietersen, and surpasses Mahendra Singh Dhoni's $1,500,000. But Flintoff did not find success at the tournament, held in South Africa after the Mumbai attacks, as after a difficult first few matches he was sent home for surgery following another knee injury.


However, speculation over Flintoff's form ahead of the much-awaited 2009 Ashes series died down as he seized six scalps in his first match back for Lancashire and left "several county batsmen [...] nursing bruised ribs and fingers". He also collected a half-century against Hampshire, although he was still yet to register a century in either domestic cricket or any form of the international game since that Trent Bridge instalment of the last home Ashes in 2005, which year also accounted for his most recent Test five-for. "It's always been an Australian trait to over-rate players who have done well against them (just ask VVS Laxman)," wrote Lawrence Booth. "But in the case of Andrew Flintoff, this phenomenon is getting so out of control you wonder whether Steve Waugh has returned to orchestrate a cunning mind-game. [...] In any case, does anyone honestly think a player with his fitness record will make it through a five-Test series condensed into less than seven weeks?" Flintoff did offer some hope with the willow in the Twenty20 Cup, however, hitting 93 off 41 balls for Lancashire against Derbyshire in June.


On 15 July 2009, Flintoff announced he would retire from Test cricket at the end of the 2009 Ashes Series. He was man of the match in England's victory at Lords in the Second Test Match, taking 5 wickets in the second innings after a fine display of fast bowling. On 23 August 2009, England defeated Australia at The Oval to seal a 2–1 series win, with Flintoff notably running out the Australian captain Ricky Ponting, ensuring Flintoff ended his England career on a high. He said that "Since 2005 I have just been plagued with injury so I've got the opportunity now to finish on a high by helping England to win the Ashes and it will give me great pleasure if I can play my last Test at the Oval and we can win the Ashes – it doesn't get any bigger than that."
On 16 September 2010, however, Flintoff retired from all forms of cricket, having consulted with medical advisors.

Individual records and achievements-

• Flintoff is the second highest English wicket-taker in one-day international cricket with 159 wickets, and the 10th highest in Test cricket, with 218 wickets. These figures include wickets taken for the ICC World XI.
• He is also the 9th highest English run-scorer in one-day internationals, with a total of 2975.
• Flintoff hit Surrey's Alex Tudor for 34 runs (6–4–4–4–4–6–6–0) in an over at Old Trafford in 1998. The over included two no-balls that, under ECB regulations, counted for two penalty runs apiece, making a grand total of 38.
• The highest score of his career at any level is 232 not out for St Anne's (Under 15) Cricket Club against Fulwood and Broughton. He recalls that "it was a 20-overs-a-side game, played on an artificial wicket, and I remember getting dropped when I'd scored just six. My opening partner David Fielding scored 60 not out and we got 319 for 0 in 20 overs. You don't forget days like that, whatever the standard you're playing in".
• Flintoff was Lancashire's winner of the NBC Denis Compton Award in 1997.
• Flintoff holds the record for the most sixes scored for England, beating Ian Botham's record of 67 with a six off India's Piyush Chawla in Mohali on 11 March 2006.
• Flintoff is only the seventh player to have batted on all five days of a Test match, achieving this feat at Mohali, in the same match in which he broke the sixes record.

Media career-

As of March 2010, Flintoff is a team captain on the Sky One television sports panel show A League of Their Own, hosted by James Corden.

In popular culture-

• He appears on the cover of the English version of EA Sports' video games Cricket 2005 and Cricket 07.
• Flintoff was joint winner of the Beard Liberation Front's Beard of the Year award in 2004 with NATFHE union leader Paul Mackney and then won again in 2005.

Autobiographies-

He has written several books: Being Freddie, Freddie, and Andrew Flintoff, My Life in Pictures. He is a supporter of Manchester City, although he states in his autobiography that he prefers the two rugby codes.