COUNTY CRICKET TRANSFERS: Why Flintoff’s Lancashire future is in doubt

The futures of two former England captains’ sons are up in the air heading into the final third of the 2025 season.

Josh de Caires – whose father Michael Atherton does not tend to get involved in his cricket affairs – has two attractive offers to rival Middlesex’s bid to keep him.

Meanwhile, it is not nailed on that Rocky Flintoff – whose career moves have been controlled by his dad, and now coach, Andrew – will continue at Lancashire in the long term.

Flintoff, 17, is yet to make a first-team appearance for Lancashire this season, and although it has partly been down to England Under 19s commitments, being overlooked in selection at Old Trafford has caused irritation.

It suggests that even at this tender age, moving away from family roots in the North West – as his elder brother Corey did by joining Kent earlier this year – is not out of the question. His mum Rachael doubles as his agent, but father Freddie has been most instrumental in Rocky’s rapid rise, using his positions as head coach by picking him for both the England Lions and Northern Superchargers.

His ‘wildcard’ selection for the Hundred, before he has even played a Twenty20 match, has arguably backfired. He was never going to make the Superchargers’ first-choice XI and it has deprived the teenager of featuring in Lancashire’s One-Day Cup fixtures.

The inactivity for an emerging young player replicates that of Jacob Bethell with England this summer. Despite averaging in excess of 60 in limited-overs internationals at its start, sticking around the Test environment arguably contributed to Bethell losing batting rhythm, and his highest score in nine innings since is 20. 

Derbyshire have led the pursuit of De Caires in recent weeks, coinciding with Middlesex using him in his more natural role as an opening batsman. The 23-year-old was overlooked during the first half of this summer’s County Championship, having finished 2024 at No 7, complementing his batting with effective off-spin bowling.

However, since June 1, the date from which cricketers in the final year of their contracts can talk to other clubs, he has returned to the top of the order with aplomb, scoring half-centuries in each of his last three Division Two innings as well as hitting two big hundreds in the Second XI Championship.

Traditionally, Derbyshire have been viewed as a last-resort destination for county cricketers, but in Mickey Arthur, the South African with experience of coaching four different Test teams, they have someone fully committed to changing the narrative for a county who have won the Championship just once, 89 years ago.

A sign of their ambition was that they also recently moved for Somerset’s specialist white-ball hitter Sean Dickson.

Promotion remains a possibility and with three rounds of matches remaining, they sit third in the table, three points ahead of Middlesex, adding some intrigue to De Caires’ deliberations.

Eskinazi joins the silver Foxes

Middlesex are already losing one top-order player from their squad for 2026, as Daily Mail Sport understands that Stevie Eskinazi has negotiated an early release from his contract to join Leicestershire.

Impressively, Eskinazi, 31, has been Middlesex’s leading run scorer in five of the last six Twenty20 campaigns, but was axed – averaging 37.71 – after four rounds of Championship action this summer, and has not appeared in four-day cricket under new captain Leus du Plooy.

It is thought the chance of being considered an all-format player once more by a Leicestershire team on the verge of promotion excited Eskinazi.

It also increases the posse of wise heads destined for the Midlands club: as reported previously in this column, ex-Yorkshire captain Jonny Tattersall and Somerset duo Ben Green and Josh Davey have already committed for 2026.

Barker back to the Bears? 

Another experienced performer in Keith Barker may also look to play on despite turning 39 in October and serving a 12-month drugs ban.

Barker, technically available after his ban – which was put down to an administrative error by his club Hampshire – but now battling a calf niggle, he will hope to persuade his current employers or potentially former ones Warwickshire he is good for another year.

Warwickshire already have one of the county’s most prolific modern bowlers in Chris Rushworth in the final eight weeks of his deal, and although they are intent on reducing the average age of their squad, Barker’s left-arm angle and longstanding fitness record make him a viable recruit.

Double blow for Durham 

Durham have lost Mitchell Killeen to Essex, after securing his fellow 20-year-old seamer Archie Bailey.

They also appear to be in danger of pushing England Lions opener Ben McKinney into the final 12 months of his current deal questioning his future prospects.

The 20-year-old began 2025 as an Ashes squad hopeful, but was dropped from both Durham’s first-class and Twenty20 sides in midsummer following a slight dip in form, before showing his classy ball-striking ability with 29 off just a dozen deliveries in the Hundred on Monday evening.

Gloucestershire exodus continues 

Meanwhile, Gloucestershire are set to lose a seventh bowler at the end of this season with Marchant de Lange being pursued by Glamorgan, hot on the heels of one-club man Chris Dent announcing his retirement with immediate effect. 

Why county game has not introduced subs yet 

Darren Lehmann’s call for replacements on compassionate grounds, following the most recent round of County Championship fixtures, reopened debate on the use of substitutes in cricket.

On the same evening that Chris Woakes dislocated his shoulder while fielding in England’s six-run defeat by India at the Oval, Zak Chappell asked to be excused from the remainder of Derbyshire’s match with Lehmann’s Northamptonshire.

‘He’s got a few personal issues to deal with, so we needed him to finish his game this evening, no matter which way that was going to be, and obviously getting him to open the batting was one way to do that,’ explained Derbyshire captain Wayne Madsen, at the end of the third day’s play.

Having contributed 22 to the visitors’ second-innings total of 52 for four, the 28-year-old headed to Spain where his father Adrian was poorly.

‘We would have loved to allow a replacement,’ Lehmann said. ‘You should be able to replace a player in times of need.’

Thankfully, with his dad believed to be on the mend, Chappell was back in action on August 10, crashing a 26-ball 47 and following up with three wickets in a one-day win over local rivals Nottinghamshire.

The higher-profile case of Woakes polarised opinion on whether injury subs were now necessary in top-level cricket.

England captain Ben Stokes said it was ‘tough s***’ and that teams should deal with such adverse circumstances as they do other external challenges, despite his predecessor Michael Vaughan insisting cricket was a ‘dinosaur game’ for not moving with the times.

Internationally, substitutions are expected to be adopted from 2026, following recent noises from within the ICC, but domestically it is cost-prohibitive.

The ECB were first given the green light to use subs for any reasons they saw fit by the international governing body in 2022, but have continued to hold off on those for injuries, believing it would require independent doctors employed on day rates to adjudicate on the seriousness of impairment and avoid regulations being exploited.

Currently, the playing conditions of county competitions allows for substitutions to be made in cases of concussion, and for players to be either taken out of or parachuted into four-day matches when being called up to or released from England squads.

Players also tend to pull out of games in weeks when pregnant partners are due to give birth and some leeway here would minimise game time missed.

T20 Blast revamp imminent 

Initial alterations to next year’s domestic structure will be revealed later this week when the ECB confirm that the group stage of the Vitality Blast will be reduced to 12 matches from its current level of 14.

Reverting to three regions, away from the current north-south divide, will see teams play each other home and away in addition to one fixture apiece against opponents from the other two groups.

Varying opponents in the group stage annually has appeal in county boardrooms, where there is a belief that members can get bored of seeing the same match-ups season after season.

Once the rescheduling is confirmed, domestic bosses will discuss a multi-million pound investment designed to reinvigorate the county game’s Twenty20 competition, potentially using some of the £500million shared with the clubs from the great Hundred sell-off.