Andrew Flintoff has been forced to apologise to his team-mates after he “stuffed up” by missing part of England's Ashes bonding trip to Flanders.

All-rounder Flintoff, who has only just rejoined the squad following knee surgery and is bidding to prove his fitness for next week's opening Test against Australia, failed to appear for the bus that took Andrew Strauss and all the other players on a visit to the First World War trenches at Ypres.

But, in what is supposed to be the biggest summer in English cricket history, it has emerged that Flintoff is only one of a number of players who have been disciplined for bad time-keeping since Strauss became captain earlier this year.

Because of Flintoff's colourful past, Saturday's no-show made all the headlines, with Strauss being quizzed today over whether alcohol played a part in the 31-year-old's absence after he had attended a team dinner the previous evening.

Flintoff was suspended for a World Cup match in St Lucia two years ago following the drink-fuelled Pedalo Affair and, a few months before that, former coach Duncan Fletcher insisted he had been too hung-over to practise properly in Sydney 24 hours before a one-day international.

But while most people will be dismayed by Flintoff's latest disciplinary problem, news of other problems within the camp come as a bigger surprise. Strauss has made much of giving players responsibility but it seems that some have let him down when they ought to be doing everything right if they want to face the Aussies.

“We don't want to go into too much because it was a private weekend away,” said Strauss when asked about Flintoff's “mistake” in Flanders.

“He missed the bus. In fact, punctuality has been a bit of an issue recently with a few players, so it's something we are trying to iron out and we have taken steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. Fred accepts he made a mistake and the appropriate action has been taken.”

England have shown they can rule with a rod of iron on a couple of occasions this year, twice leaving out Notts all-rounder Samit Patel on the grounds he failed to meet the required levels of fitness. But they refuse to identify the poor time-keepers or say whether they had been fined.

“We don't want to go into what mechanisms we have in place because it's something that is internal but I think he [Flintoff] knows he mustn't do again,” said Strauss, who should have spent today talking about England's three-day Ashes warm-up match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston, which starts tomorrow.

“He is very aware that he's stuffed up. He took it on the chin and has apologised to everyone concerned. It was a very sincere apology.

“There have been a few players who have been letting things slip in that respect and I think they all know it is not acceptable going forward.”
Flintoff is his own worst enemy, getting into far too many scrapes that could easily have been avoided.

“Of course there have been instances with Fred before but for us to start looking back on that would be completely wrong at this stage,” Strauss said. “I know he is massively excited to be involved in the squad again. He feels bad about missing the bus and bad that this is an issue.

“We all know that if he is playing well he is a massive asset to have. But at the same time we don't want one rule for one and another for others. So it's important we have that consistency.”

Asked about whether Flintoff missed the bus because he had drunk too much the night before, Strauss said: “It's a punctuality issue. He played a full part in the rest of the day's activities and seemed absolutely fine. So I don't think that's an issue.”