BIRMINGHAM: England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff was ruled out of the third one-day international against India on Monday with a knee injury.
The 29-year-old injured his right knee in the second match at Bristol on Friday and has been replaced by spinner Monty Panesar.
Also out of the Edgbaston game is another all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas who injured his hand in the warm-up and has been replaced by Owais Shah.
Flintoff has missed Test series against West Indies and the Indians due to an ankle injury as well as the first NatWest Series of the international season.
Having returned for this seven-match campaign, he showed what England had been missing with a career-best five for 56 three days ago despite being impaired by soreness behind his right knee.
Left-arm spinner Panesar was a controversial ommission from England's nine-run defeat in Bristol, where India levelled the series at 1-1.
Although Mascarenhas's injury is not thought to be serious, the Hampshire all-rounder was not risked.
India won the toss and chose to bowl first, strengthened by the return of left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan, man of the series in the Test victory, in place of Ajit Agarkar.
Teams
England: Alastair Cook, Matthew Prior (wk), Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood (capt), Owais Shah, Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, Chris Tremlett, James Anderson, Monty Panesar
India: Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Ramesh Powar, Piyush Chawla, Zaheer Khan, Rudra Pratap Singh, Munaf Patel
Umpires: Mark Benson (ENG), Billy Doctrove (WIS)
TV umpire: Peter Hartley (ENG)
Match referee: Roshan Mahanama (SRI)
