JUST a day after naming an Ashes squad groaning with the half-fit and the convalescent, the last thing that the England selectors needed was an injury to one of their most durable players. As Matthew Hoggard was warming up before Yorkshire’s Liverpool Victoria County Championship match at Headingley Carnegie yesterday morning, he felt a twinge in his right side and was promptly withdrawn from the game against Nottinghamshire.
The injury is not thought to be serious as an ultrasound scan revealed no damage to his abdominal muscles. He will visit Leeds General Infirmary to undergo an MRI scan — a more powerful examination — at 1pm today.
“He was withdrawn as a precaution,” Scott McAllister, the Yorkshire physiotherapist, said. “He could have bowled today, but we have to be careful with a fast bowler that we don’t aggravate it.”
Amid England’s myriad injury problems over the past year, Hoggard has remained a reassuring constant. Stretching back to the first Test against West Indies in March 2004, he has played in 36 consecutive Test matches. Since the end of last summer’s Ashes series, only Hoggard and Kevin Pietersen have played in all of England’s 13 Test matches.
Hoggard had one close call this summer after Tim Bresnan, his team-mate, stood on his hand during a game of touch rugby five days before the first npower Test against Pakistan, but several sessions in an oxygen chamber ensured that he was able to take his place in the side at Lord’s.
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Hoggard’s injury means that, of the eight frontline bowlers named in England’s 16-man squad for the Ashes series, only Monty Panesar and Sajid Mahmood are at present fit enough to bowl in a first-class match. Andrew Flintoff is recovering from ankle surgery, Stephen Harmison missed the one-day series against Pakistan with a back injury and Liam Plunkett has a side strain, while neither Ashley Giles nor James Anderson has bowled at all this season.
To that sorry list can be added the absence of Simon Jones, reason enough for the England selectors to be hoping desperately that Hoggard’s scan does not reveal any damage today.
Bizarrely, Hoggard’s was not the only injury suffered by Yorkshire before play yesterday and, as with Hoggard’s hand injury, a warm-up game of touch rugby was involved. Anthony McGrath injured his shin when he collided with Mark Lawson, his team-mate.
He also had a scan, which revealed nothing more than bruising, and he is expected to be available for Yorkshire’s final championship match, against Durham.
As McGrath’s namesake, Glenn, begins his comeback in the DLF Cup one-day series in Malaysia, Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain, said that he had been encouraged with his veteran fast bowler’s return to action. On Tuesday, McGrath took one for 30 from nine overs against West Indies, his first international appearance since taking time out from the game in January to care for his sick wife.
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“Glenn was probably trying a bit too hard to make a real impact in his first game back,” Ponting said. “By the time of the Champions Trophy, I’m sure he’ll be in good shape.”