Sport

Andrew Flintoff has given cricket fans a no ball after the England legend will not feature in the battle of the Roses Natwest T20 game tonight.

Former England international hero Andrew Flintoff will play for Lancashire in the NatWest T20 Blast competition – his first outing since quitting the test field at the end of the 2009 Ashes series and then retiring definitively the following year.

A-League side Melbourne Heart have changed their name to Melbourne City FC after Sheikh Mansour added the side to his growing portfolio with a £6million takeover in late January.

Welshman Giggs envisages good times under the new regime though it may well be a few years yet until he takes on a management himself after a career that included a record 963 appearances for the Old Trafford club.

Despite Marc Wilmots’s side winning side 5-1 where goals included a hat-trick from Romelu Lukaku, FIFA have ruled the win as invalid due to Wilmots making too many substitutions in the World Cup warm-up match.

Louis van Gaal, who in nine days time will watch on as the Dutch take on Spain in their World Cup opener, heads to Brazil hoping to land the 1988 European champions their first Jules Rimet trophy.

Salford-born Williams is the latest in a line of top-level British athletes to move abroad and lap up the culture in a country that lives and breathes the sport they toil away at for a career.

The 76-year-old singled out Rooney as being the only true ‘world class’ player in the Three Lions squad and says the 28-year-old must start in Manaus against Italy on June 14 despite an indifferent season.

Recently retired ex-Manchester United midfielder Park Ji-Sung did not take long to get back into the game after calling time on his Korea – after taking part in a charity match.

Lambert, who signed for Liverpool yesterday, 17 years after they released him as a kid, was a 19-year-old in a Macclesfield side that played in an FA Cup tie back in January 2002.

England manager Roy Hodgson has to find a solution in midfield where he needs to find a partner for Steven Gerrard, as well as in defence where he has a glaring weakness.