Andrew Flintoff is to have an exploratory operation on his right knee after the Ashes decider, and if he did not look yesterday like a man in desperate need of surgery then that was only because Australia failed to force him through the gruelling workload they intended. It helped that others took the strain, notably Stuart Broad.

Ricky Ponting and his colleagues wanted to wear down Flintoff, the linchpin of the England bowling attack, although that is a role that the all-rounder is already relinquishing.

Flintoff was not overburdened by Andrew Strauss, his captain, who watched Broad deliver the kind of game-changing spell that Flintoff produced at the Brit Oval four years ago.

England declined to confirm that Flintoff requires surgery because “we are saving him to concentrate on the task in hand, which is on the field”. Unfortunately, rather than closing the story as they hope, open season on speculation about his future persists.

Flintoff visited Andy Williams, a specialist, on August 10, four days before the selectors named the player in the one-day squads for the international against Ireland at Belfast on Thursday, the subsequent NatWest Series and Twenty20 contests with Australia and the Champions Trophy in South Africa.

An ECB statement issued within hours of that consultation said that the appointment had taken place in conjunction with the England and Lancashire medical teams, as would be expected. However, Geoff Miller, the national selector, denied knowing at the selection meeting that the all-rounder categorically needed surgery.

“We always knew there was a strong possibility, but it was not certain that an operation was imminent,” Miller said.

Flintoff stated four days ago that he is due to see the specialist again after the game to “look at a more long-term plan of what I need to do and where I need to go”.

That was interpreted as meaning an operation, although reports of significant reconstructive surgery similar to that undergone by Michael Vaughan are seen, for now, as a worst-case scenario. Vaughan was never the same player afterwards; unlike Flintoff he did not have the lucrative option of becoming a one-day specialist.

For a while yesterday Flintoff looked as though he would put in a one-day bowling shift of ten overs: six with the new ball costing seven runs and another four in the afternoon alongside Broad. He returned after tea to take the last wicket of Ben Hilfenhaus, but by then eyes were elsewhere.