ENGLAND confirmed the absence of Ashley Giles for at least the first part of the tour to India yesterday in a statement that was pessimistically vague. Although the selectors hope that he will recover to feature in the Test and one-day series, Giles has yet to bowl after surgery on his right hip in December and has no time frame for a return.
Ian Blackwell will take his place when the squad leave on Sunday and a first-class batting average of a fraction below 40 may allow him to climb above Monty Panesar, a more attacking left-arm spinner, in the pecking order. Shaun Udal is the senior slow bowler by virtue of his three Test wickets in Pakistan late last year.
Giles left that trip early to give himself the best chance of recovering for the tour to India, but the operation to remove floating bone and repair a cartilage tear was more extensive than the ECB medical team expected. The hip showed early signs of arthritis and, two months on, Giles still feels something catching when he moves his right leg to pivot.
This ability to twist is fundamental to his action and Dr Peter Gregory, the ECB chief medical officer, sounded cautious in saying that rehabilitation will progress “steadily”, with another assessment of the injury to be made “in due course”. Until then, Giles will continue to work under the fitness staff at Warwickshire.
Dr Gregory said: “Ashley has been working extremely hard on his recovery programme and is making steady progress. The advice from the specialist is that it will take time to derive full benefit from the surgery. At this stage we cannot put a time frame on when Ashley might be able to join the England team.”
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Realistically, he can be ruled out of the Test series. The three matches start in Nagpur on March 1 and continue back-to-back in Mohali and Bombay, so there will be no opportunity for Giles to play in a warm-up match. For his own state of mind he needs to know that his troublesome hip can withstand the rigours of five days’ play.
Statistics undervalue his loss to the squad. A bowling average of 39.60 from 52 Tests is modest at best, but he keeps an end tight and has become an increasingly useful No 8 batsman. Among the regular players, he is also closest to Michael Vaughan, the captain.
Given the inexperience of the remaining spinners, there must be a temptation to revert to the four-man pace attack that recovered the Ashes. However, when England took this option in Mohali in 2001, relying on Richard Dawson in his debut game, they lost heavily, with Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh sharing 15 wickets.
The most recent Test in Bombay, in November 2004, was dominated by spin as India beat Australia by 13 runs. Slow bowlers took 29 wickets, with Michael Clarke returning figures of six for nine with his occasional slow left arm. The game was over inside three days.
Udal’s off spin will be particularly important in exploiting rough outside off stump if India pick three left-arm seam bowlers, as they did against Pakistan recently. Whether Vaughan, an underused bowler over the years, feels able to support him will depend on the state of his troublesome knee.
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Blackwell was given a strong endorsement yesterday by David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, but in a straight bowling contest, Panesar wins hands down: a career bowling average of 28.23 and strike-rate of a wicket every 58.51 balls against Blackwell’s 43.25 average and 91.44 strike-rate.