Cricket: Bell's Bruised Hand Has Joyce Put on Standby

England were forced to contemplate handing a Test debut to the Middlesex left-hander Ed Joyce after Ian Bell was hit on the left wrist during nets at The Gabba yesterday. Bell was pinned by a short ball from Jimmy Anderson which failed to get up and had ice treatment before being taken to hospital, where an x-ray revealed no fracture. But there was severe bruising and England's No3 was due to be reassessed this morning.

Although the camp were making positive noises about Bell's chances, the uncertainty could hardly have come at a worse time for a batting line-up missing Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick from the team that regained the Ashes last year. Bell was in fine touch during his 132 against South Australia and is desperate to show Australia that he is a different player from the one who averaged 17.1 against them in 2005. He has since averaged more than 50 in Tests.

If he fails to recover, England will have no option but to reshuffle for the second time following the departure of Trescothick with a recurrence of a stress-related illness. One option would be to move Paul Collingwood up to No3, forcing Kevin Pietersen to bat at No4 and leaving a vacancy for Joyce at No5. It would go down as one of the most high-pressure debuts by an England batsman but Andrew Strauss was full of praise for his Middlesex colleague. "Ed's greatest strength is his ability to keep a cool head under pressure," he said. "Even so, we're very hopeful that Ian's going to play. It would be a blow if he missed out but we are talking about hypotheticals. From what I've seen it won't prevent him playing."

Australia last night released the fast bowler Shaun Tait from their squad ahead of the opening Test. Tait, 23, was one of three bowlers vying for the final place in Australia's line-up at Brisbane, along with fellow seamers Stuart Clark and left-armer Mitchell Johnson.

Clark, who claimed 20 wickets in only three Tests in South Africa earlier this year, is now the favourite to get the nod ahead of the uncapped Johnson.