Andy Flower believes he could have finished Andrew Flintoff's career if he had over-reacted to the all-rounder's errant start to the Ashes summer.

Flintoff was disciplined by the England and Wales Cricket Board for missing the team bus on the morning of a pre-Ashes team-bonding trip to Flanders last weekend. Suggestions that alcohol played a part in the poor timekeeping were promptly denied by England captain Andrew Strauss - and although team director Flower has confirmed 31-year-old Flintoff has been warned about his future conduct, he also insists the matter is closed.

"This particular situation was not a big enough thing for me to drop Andrew Flintoff," Flower told The Times. "No way was it a serious enough issue to do that, to finish someone's career."

Flower has stressed too that he will take no account of previous misdemeanours for any of his charges - including 2005 Ashes winner Flintoff, who is set to make his comeback after knee surgery in next week's first Test against Australia in Cardiff.

"Every player stars with a clean slate, and I'm not judging him on anything that went before," the coach spelt out.

"He made a bad mistake. But I'll tell you right now that I've made more mistakes than Andrew Flintoff.

"He apologised to the team and pledged his commitment to do things well for the rest of the summer.

"Obviously we had to speak to him privately about it, and he has been warned. But that is the end of the matter for us as a team."

Flower is dismissive of the clamour in some quarters to get tough with Flintoff, who was dropped under the Duncan Fletcher regime over his infamous 'Fredalo' incident during England's unsuccessful 2007 World Cup campaign.

Recalling one editorial calling for Flintoff to be demoted again, he said: "It was utterly ridiculous. We're talking about the end of someone's England career, and I'm not prepared to finish someone's career on that basis. It's just crazy talk."