England, Pak both marred by injuries

London: England and Pakistan faced further withdrawals from their depleted pace attacks on the eve of the first Test at Lord's starting on Thursday.

The home side will wait until the last minute before deciding whether their senior bowler Matthew Hoggard is fit to take the field after a freak injury last Saturday required six stitches in his bowling hand.

Pakistan, who have moved into second place in the world Test rankings ahead of England after winning their last three series, planned to assess the fitness of Mohammad Asif in the nets on Wednesday following an elbow injury.

Opener batsman Shoaib Malik is also suffering from an elbow strain which is hampering his fielding.

England have already lost half of the pace attack who were crucial to their Ashes win over Australia last year.

Simon Jones is out for the season with a knee operation and all-rounder Andy Flintoff will miss the first Test because of a heel problem. Their first reserve James Anderson is also out of action with a back injury.

Pakistan will take the field without the explosive Shoaib Akhtar and his opening partner Rana Naved-ul-Hasan.

Akhtar has an ankle injury while Rana was ruled out of the series this week with a groin injury. Another of their pacemen Mohammad Sami has been struggling with a knee injury.

Useful Workout

England captain Andrew Strauss said on Wednesday the management team would give Hoggard as long as possible to recover from the injury sustained when a team mate trod on his bowling hand during exercises.

"At this stage we are giving him as long as possible to prove his fitness," Strauss said. "He had a useful workout in the nets today."

If Hoggard's run of 32 consecutive Tests does come to an end England will field an attack in which only Steve Harmison, who is himself returning from injury after missing the Sri Lanka series with sore shins, will have more than 15 Test wickets.

Pakistan would also badly miss Asif, who took 17 wickets in the recent two-Test tour of Sri Lanka and was compared by vice-captain Younis Khan to Australia's Glenn McGrath.

"Asif will practise today and after that we will see," Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq said. "If he doesn't play in this Test, he will definitely play in the second."

Pakistan's spirits will have been improved by the hot weather which has returned to England in time for the series and, on paper, they look the stronger side in a country where they have not lost a series since 1982.

"The one thing about them in the winter was their unpredictability," said Strauss, recalling England's 2-0 Test series defeat.

"They can turn the match around in one session. We can't afford to relax, we have got to be on top of our game at all times."