Fletcher Doubt Over Gough's Fitness for Tests

Never say never in sport. Whether it is Lance Armstrong recovering from cancer to win the Tour de France or Jose Maria Olazabal wondering if he would ever walk again and then helping win the Ryder Cup, there is no accounting for an indomitable will to prove the doubters wrong.

Almost a year ago Darren Gough played for England at Lord's in the final of the NatWest Series. It was to be his final match for his country until he faced Pakistan at the start of this year's one-day fest, a chronic knee injury threatening to bring a halt to a decade of fast bowling. You'll never be back, he was told. Oh no? Thus far he has proved a point.

These have been a revealing few weeks for Gough, though. Bringing him back had a risk element that might not have been tolerated for a lesser player. England were feeling their way. No one quite knew how his knee would react to the instinctive demands of real competition.

The response has been good: 66 overs in seven innings, each one - even his final effort against South Africa at The Oval which Andrew Hall hit for 21 runs - a mini master-class in the art of bowling, an object lesson in the value of experience from which no young aspiring bowler could do anything but learn. The culmination, on Sunday, was figures of four for 26 on a skittish pitch in Bristol to help dis pose of Zimbabwe in double-quick time.

He is, as he is never slow to remind anyone who listens, back. How far that should extend beyond the final of the competition on Saturday is a matter for conjecture, but already there are those who would see a return to the Test side as a natural progression.

But would it be prudent to consider the resumption of a 32-year-old's Test career which was placed on hold after the last home Ashes series two years ago, particularly at a time when new bowlers such as James Anderson, Steve Harmison, Simon Jones and Richard Johnson have been making their mark?

"We need the experience of a fit Darren Gough in the Test side," said the England coach Duncan Fletcher in the aftermath of the win over Zimbabwe. But the key to that lies in the word "fit". There is the world of difference between being fit to bowl 10 overs in a one-day match, few of them flat out, and competing in a tough series on Test match pitches, where fast bowlers, as a strike force, operate on the edge.

At the moment Gough, through careful management, has the injury under control; it gives him discomfort but it is not incapacitating. But it is a degenerative condition which will only get worse and the dilemma for him is whether to push too hard in pursuit of a renewed Test career or settle for appearances in one-day matches. The former might bring short-term glory but would almost certainly curtail his career, whereas the latter, if managed absolutely, could yet bring England benefit even as far as the next World Cup in 2007.

Fletcher was adamant that he could be of no further help in this matter. "The only guy who knows if he is fit enough for Test cricket is Darren himself," he said. "But he would have to know that he could be out there for five or six sessions. To bowl 25 overs in a day and then maybe 15 the following day and to stand all the while in the field is a hell of a lot different to one-day cricket. Only he knows if he can do it."

An absolute priority would be for him to play - and bowl significantly - in Yorkshire's County Championship match against Durham next week. If it proved self-defeating then at least England would know.

In the short term it has to be decided whether it is in the interest of England and Gough for him to play in what has become a meaningless match at Edgbaston this afternoon. England and South Africa have both qualified for Saturday's final so there is an opportunity to give Gough's knee a chance to rest up while offering more experience to another bowler. Against that, it is important for England, and indeed Gough, to learn as much as they can about the recovery rate of his injury by subjecting it to as much stress as they dare.

England will surely want to make changes from the unbalanced XI that beat Zimbabwe. Given that Rikki Clarke was unlikely to bowl in a side overloaded with seamers, his inclusion in that side suggested they were more confident of him scoring runs than either Jim Troughton or Robert Key. He may be retained; if not, Troughton can be expected to return for a match on his home ground.

England (from): * MP Vaughan (Yorks), ME Trescothick (Somerset), VS Solanki (Worcs), JO Troughton (Warwicks), A Flintoff (Lancs), A McGrath (Yorks), R Clarke (Surrey), CMW Read (Notts), AF Giles (Warwicks), D Gough (Yorks), JM Anderson (Lancs), Kabir Ali (Worcs), SJ Harmison (Durham), RL Johnson (Somerset).

South Africa (from): *GC Smith), MV Boucher, PR Adams, N Boje, AC Dawson, HH Dippenaar, HH Gibbs, AJ Hall, JH Kallis, CK Langeveldt, A Nel, M Ntini, SM Pollock, D Pretorius, JA Rudolph, M van Jaarsveld, MN van Wijk.