MELBOURNE, Oct 1: England’s all-rounder Andrew Flintoff Escaped serious injury when he was struck by a ball from Pakistani pace bowler Shoaib Akhtar while practising for ICC Super Series in Melbourne.

“I got hit on the arm, but it’s fine. It happens,” said Flintoff, who is part of a World squad to take on Australia.

The incident did not influence the decision to leave him out of team for Sunday’s warm-up game against state side Victoria at St Kilda.

Flintoff’s England team-mate Kevin Pietersen is in 12-man squad.

“Andrew has played a lot of cricket lately at high intensity, so it didn’t seem necessary to rush him into a game only two days after he has arrived in Melbourne,” team director Sunil Gavaskar said.

Team management have picked a 12-man squad, one of whom will be nominated as a Super Sub before start of play, with Flintoff and New Zealand spin bowler Daniel Vettori only players omitted.

It is World side’s only practice fixture before three Super Series games against Australia, taking place indoors at Telstra Dome on Oct 5, 7 and 9.

Meanwhile, West Indies batsman Brian Lara was appointed as World skipper Shaun Pollock’s deputy following withdrawal of Sachin Tendulkar.

“I am honoured to have been asked to take on role of vice-captain. I look forward to helping Shaun over coming days as we look to gel together as a unit in time for first match against Australia on Wednesday,” Lara commented.

Victoria’s team includes a number of players who have just Returned from Australia A tour to Pakistan and county duties in England.

Teams from:

Victoria: Cameron White (captain), Adam Crosthwaite, Gerard Denton, Shane Harwood, Brad Hodge, David Hussey, Nick Jewell, Michael Klinger, Michael Lewis, Jonathan Moss, Rob Quiney, Tim Welsford.

World XI (from): Shaun Pollock (captain), Brian Lara (vice-captain), Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Rahul Dravid, Chris Gayle, Jacques Kallis, Muttiah Muralitharan, Makhaya Ntini, Kevin Pietersen, Kumar Sangakkara, Virender Sehwag.

Meawhile, England still have more to do to displace Australia as world cricket’s top nation, Indian batsman Rahul Dravid said on Saturday.

Dravid said England had to prove themselves against other teams before they could claim to be number one.

Euphoria greeted England’s 2-1 Ashes series win over Australia last month, raising hopes that they could go on to dominate world cricket.

“To displace Australia you’ve got to really play well and play well consistently all over the world, which is what Australia have done and have rightly earned the spot to be number one,” Dravid told reporters.

Dravid said England had the potential to dethrone Australia at the top of the ICC rankings if they continued with its Ashes form.

“They have the squad, they’ve got a really good squad at the moment and they’ve got some good young players,” he said.

“It will be interesting to see how they go in the (northern) winter in the sub-continent. That will be a good test for them.

“They’ve done well there — last time they beat Pakistan,” he said. “England have shown this summer that they have got the personnel.”

Dravid said the Super Series would give the world team “an opportunity to reinforce what England have done in the summer.”

“But having said that I think Australia will be very keen to come back.

“A lot of the boys in that team are not used to losing so we will be sure they’ll come back very hard and really want to prove a point,” he said.

The first one-dayer takes place at Docklands Stadium on Wednesday.—Agencies