Cricket: England Crisis As Jones and Anderson Miss First Test

England are facing a fast-bowling crisis with both Simon Jones and James Anderson certain to miss the first Test against Sri Lanka which begins at Lord's a week on Thursday.

Jones is the latest to pull up lame, limping off with a knee twinge yesterday in Glamorgan's 15-run win over an impressively resilient Ireland, who were no doubt buoyed by their victory over Gloucestershire the previous day, in the C&G Trophy at Cardiff. He had bowled a fiery seven-over spell earlier in the match, taking two cheap wickets, but after one delivery of his returning spell he felt pain in the same knee that was operated upon recently and kept him out of the winter tour to India.

Glamorgan's physiotherapist Chris Towers immediately contacted Peter Gregory, the England and Wales Cricket Board's chief medical officer, and Jones will undergo a scan today. But he has already been ruled out of Glamorgan's championship match against Derbyshire tomorrow, thus effectively ending his chances of making the first Test next week.

Most disappointing is that in Glamorgan's first championship match against Essex at Cardiff last week, during which the visitors had piled up 639 for eight declared on a flat pitch, Jones had bowled 28 overs, including 22 on the first day, 11 of which were bowled before lunch in a rigorous work-out, without any reaction.

That had been his first first-class match since the Trent Bridge Ashes Test last summer when he suffered the ankle injury which precluded his involvement in the winter tour of Pakistan.

Jones might not have been quite at full pace and his famed reverse swing might have been missing on a pitch with a little more moisture than usual for Cardiff but all the signs had been encouraging for the Welshman, who played such an important part in that Ashes triumph.

The only glitch in his rehabilitation from this latest knee injury, which is not the same knee he horrifically injured in Brisbane in 2002, had come when he had suffered minor swelling in the previous week after bowling nine overs against Cardiff UCCE in his first competitive outing of the season.

Jones had attributed that to some heavy sprint training he had been doing on a treadmill before that match and, prior to yesterday's jolting setback, he had declared himself confident of facing the Sri Lankans."I just need some miles in my legs," he had said. They had been in short supply in a wet pre-season in Wales which meant he had bowled only 45.1 overs outside this season when his latest injury occurred.

Steve Harmison's fitness is still uncertain, the Durham bowler struggling with a shin injury, while Lancashire's Anderson sees a specialist tomorrow amid new concerns about his injured back. Anderson, who has had two recent scans, struggled through much of the India tour with the complaint, even though he had match figures of six for 79 in the third Test.

The problem has shown little sign of improvement since his return home. The injury justifies the concerns of England's former bowling coach Troy Cooley who had warned that unless Anderson changed his bowling technique he would suffer problems with his back.

To worsen matters further both Hampshire's Chris Tremlett and Surrey's Rikki Clarke are also doubtful for Thursday's England A match against the Sri Lankans at Worcester. Durham's Liam Plunkett and Lancashire's Sajid Mahmood are now firmly in line to play in the Lord's Test.