\n\tLONDON: Former England all-rounder \u200cAndrew Flintoff has stepped down as head coach of the England Lions, the country\u2019s cricket board said \u200bon Friday, leaving the 48-year-old to focus on his coaching role at Australia\u2019s Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash League.<\/p>\n
\n\tFlintoff had led England\u2019s second-string side since September 2024 and was initially expected to continue in the role alongside his appointment \u200cat the \u200cThunder, which was announced \u200bin \u200cJune. \u2060He \u200bhad been \u2060due to leave a planned Lions tour of South Africa early to join the Australian franchise.<\/p>\n
\n\tHowever, he opted to leave the national setup ahead of the Lions\u2019 upcoming assignments, including Pakistan\u2019s four-day warm-up match before \u2060a three-match test series against England \u200clater this month.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cUnfortunately, \u200cI\u2019ve made the decision to \u200bstep away from \u200cmy role with the Lions,\u201d Flintoff said \u200cin a statement.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cNot only have I enjoyed my time having the opportunity to work with the best young cricketers in the country, but \u200chave taken great pride in seeing them develop …<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t wait to get \u2060started \u2060with the Thunder later in the year and see where coaching takes me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFlintoff also coached Northern Superchargers in The Hundred and worked with England\u2019s white-ball teams in an informal consultant capacity before taking charge of the Lions.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe cricket board said Mike Yardy would take charge as the head coach of the Professional County Club \u200bSelect XI for \u200bPakistan\u2019s four-day warm-up match at Beckenham beginning on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON: Former England all-rounder \u200cAndrew Flintoff has stepped down as head coach of the England Lions, the country\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-848149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}