This Flintoff business is getting messy, to nobody’s great surprise. When Lancashire finally confirmed they had added the 36-year-old to their squad for the Twenty20 Blast last Friday, it was widely interpreted that he would make his debut in this Friday’s home game against Yorkshire.

That led to “a surge” in ticket sales, according to the club, and an attendance at or near Old Trafford’s 16,000 capacity is expected, with all hospitality packages already sold. Sky, who will be televising the game, have dusted off their old Freddie favourites for a special promotional package that was shown while Alastair Cook and Angelo Mathews were preparing for their post-match press conferences at Edgbaston on Tuesday night. But all the indications before Andrew Flintoff made his first appearance back in Lancashire red, for the second team in their T20 finals day at Arundel on Thursday, were that he is very unlikely to play against the Yorkies. He took two for 37 in his four overs against Leicestershire seconds, and was out for 16.

As it stands, Flintoff is not expected to be included in Lancashire’s squad on Friday evening when the teams are confirmed.

In many ways that is a vindication of the message Lancashire have been trying to stress since the possibility of a Flintoff comeback was first mooted more than a month ago – this is a cricket-driven process, not a commercial one. He hasn’t yet done enough to merit a place in a team that has won four straight T20 matches since an opening defeat at Nottingham, whereas Jos Buttler must be accommodated now that he is available again after his stellar one-day performances for England.

Some senior figures at Lancashire had major reservations about the idea of a Flintoff comeback when it became clear that he was keen to have a greater involvement at Old Trafford this year than bringing his children to Saturday morning kids’ club in the indoor school. Peter Moores, who was then still the coach, was happy with a mostly young and homegrown squad, augmented by Buttler and Junaid Khan. Memories were fresh of the damaging and distracting effect that the Flintoff circus could cause, often through no fault of his own.

But then they saw the buzz Flintoff could still create among those young players – and, more importantly, the pace at which he could still bowl in the nets. The commercial trimmings would also be welcome, of course, but the comeback would never have been considered if the playing and coaching staff had not seen a potential to make an impact on the field.

The problem was that just as things were gathering momentum, Flintoff damaged the ligaments in his left ankle in a fielding drill. His agility in the field was always going to be an issue. Now, there had to be further questions about his ability to pound his huge frame down on that left ankle.

By the end of last week, he had answered them sufficiently convincingly for his signing to be announced. But he pulled up very stiff after bowling 12 overs for St Anne’s at the weekend, when he fielded mostly at slip – not an option in T20 cricket. So it always seemed a long shot that he could have recovered from his Arundel exertions to play at Old Trafford little more than 24 hours later.

Flintoff has always said he will have no complaints if he doesn’t make it for the Yorkshire game. He’s actually displayed an impressive level of humility, not a quality with which he is widely credited, through this whole process. He might have carried on like a bit of a pork chop, to use the Australian phrase, with those look-at-me celebrations during the 2009 Ashes series, which did not exactly endear him to the rest of the England team. But perhaps even that was partly understandable – it’s hard to imagine the level of celebrity with which he’d had to come to terms in the previous four years, or the physical and emotional turmoil he’d gone through as a result of that battered knee.

He definitely isn’t making this comeback for a stack of cash. That’s what made the tawdry stories that emerged about the unusual commission basis on which he is being paid, with reports that he would be paid £1 for each extra ticket sold, especially unfortunate. A few grand here or there isn’t going to make a huge difference to Flintoff now.

Fred’s genuinely doing this because of an endearing and even romantic desire to play cricket again. He’d always fancied returning to Lancashire at the end of his England days, but was denied that possibility in 2009 when medics told him that he would be risking life-changing damage to his knee if he bowled again.

There still hasn’t been a wholly convincing explanation of what has changed since then, other than the weight he lost when he threw himself into boxing. But that boxing adventure was instructive, as it confirmed the suspicion that Flintoff is still struggling to find fulfilment after cricket. He’s not been able to slot effortlessly into full-time media mischief-making like Michael Vaughan, his former England captain and now a close Cheshire neighbour. Coaching has never seemed a natural fit, either – it would be very much a case of do as I say, not as I did.

But being back in the dressing-room, and out in the middle; emptying bars again, and perhaps celebrating in the odd one later; perhaps a couple of months in Australia in the winter playing for his old Lancashire mate Stuart Law with Queensland in the Big Bash; it is easy to see the attraction. The question that will remain hanging after Friday’s Roses clash, perhaps in Flintoff’s mind as well as in the wider cricketing world, is whether he will ever be able to roll back the years.