LANCASHIRE's Cricket committee meet tonight with the Andy Flintoff saga and a new coach at the top of the agenda.

Flintoff has still to agree a new contract with the club, while Neil Fairbrother has emerged as the favourite to take over as player-coach.

The Fairbrother issue is the more likely to be settled tonight, with chairman Jack Simmons hinting last week that he would be in favour of appointing from within for the sake of continuity.

Cricket chairman Geoff Ogden, committee member Paul Allott and skipper John Crawley will be the other key players in that decision.

Promoting Fairbrother may improve the chances of Flintoff agreeing to stay, although there seems little chance of that stalemate being broken tonight.

The cricket committee are not in a position to up their contract offer with a host of other senior players, including Fairbrother, still to sign their new deals, raising Flintoff's would mean increasing all the other offer, and Lancashire simply cannot afford to do that.

Flintoff's agent Andrew Chandler does not expect a decision one way or the other tonight although he is hopeful of making progress when he returns from some golfing work in Scotland later in the week.

Flintoff is also causing continuing concern for England, as he has yet to prove his recovery from the side strain he suffered at Old Trafford last month - with the tour of South Africa approaching fast.

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