New Delhi, May 27: England all-rounder Flintoff was ruled out of the World Twenty20 which gets under way on June 5. The 31-year-old — who has had frequent fitness problems over the last couple of years — failed to recover in time from right knee surgery after he suffered an injury during the Indian Premier League last month.

The International Cricket Council has approved Adil Rashid as a replacement player for Flintoff in the England squad for the tournament. The confirmation was conveyed to the England and Wales Cricket Board on behalf of the event technical committee on Wednesday morning.

The uncapped 21-year-old Rashid, who plays for Yorkshire, is an all-rounder who bowls leg-spin and bats in the middle-order. He made his first-class debut in 2006 and was a member of England’s tour squads on winter trips to both India and the West Indies.

Rashid has appeared in eight T20 matches, scoring 18 runs in six innings with seven wickets at an economy rate of 7.71 runs per over. He is the second replacement player to be called up for the tournament so far after Iftikhar Anjum was approved to replace Shoaib Akhtar in the Pakistan squad.

The event technical committee of the ICC World Twenty20 consists of David Richardson (ICC, technical committee chairman), Steve Elworthy (tournament director), Campbell Jamieson (representative of IDI, the ICC’s commercial arm which runs major ICC events).

Alan Fordham (ECB representative), Ian Bishop (independent nomination) and David Lloyd (independent nomination).