Gough Compounds England's Gloom

England's cricket selectors were handed another injury problem yesterday when a disconsolate Darren Gough withdrew from the Lord's Test after suffering a recurrence of his knee injury in the Roses match at Headingley.

Gough's attempt to prove that he had recovered sufficiently from two knee operations to face India in the first Test on Thursday was abandoned when he suffered further heavy swelling overnight and failed to take the field for the final day of his championship comeback for Yorkshire against Lancashire.

He will have further consultations today with a knee specialist in Sheffield, with the likelihood that he will be advised to play no more competitive cricket for at least a fortnight. That could entail another attempted return for Yorkshire against Warwickshire at Headingley on August 7, with the possibility of an England return, also on his home ground, for the third Test against India a fortnight later.

Glamorgan's Simon Jones, son of the former England left-armer Jeff Jones, will now make his Test debut against India, with the chance to usurp Gough, for many years English cricket's talisman, as the most hostile fast bowler in the land. Jones, at least, showed signs of form, taking four wickets as he ripped out Gloucestershire's lower order at Cheltenham yesterday.

"My knee felt great on the first day," Gough said, "but on Sunday I knew from an early stage that things weren't right, and I had no choice but to bowl within myself and see how things turned out. People are going to say that my career is finished, but I'm telling them that's not true. This is just part of the normal healing process.

"After the NatWest one-day series, there was a lot of swelling and pain and my specialist advised me that it was to be expected, but that I needed to rest for a fortnight.

"But England were anxious for me to try to play at Lord's, so I had no option but to try to give it a go. It has not worked out, but it is not a major setback because things are developing according to the specialist's original forecast. Now I have to have a period of knee-strengthening exercises over the next fortnight."

Gough, 31, played the last of his 56 Tests against Australia at the Oval nearly a year ago, missed last winter's Test series in India and New Zealand, pleading fatigue and family commitments - his marriage ended soon afterwards - and damaged his knee five months ago in a one-day international in Dunedin.

Gough and Andrew Caddick have made despairing efforts to be fit for the Lord's Test, leaving England's likely new-ball attack in the hands of a debutant, Jones, and an inexperienced bowler, Matthew Hoggard, short on form and confidence.

Fears that Caddick's intercostal trouble might also prove to be more deep-seated than originally forecast, added to the absence of Alex Tudor, with inflamed shins, and the loss of the opening batsman Marcus Trescothick with a compound thumb fracture leaves England in some disarray.

John Crawley, though, confirmed he would be reporting with the rest of the squad today despite missing the final day of Hampshire's tour match against India at the Rose Bowl with suspected food poisoning.