Knee injury ends Gough's World Cup ambitions

Fast bowler to see specialist and take three months off after breaking down for fourth time as Silverwood flies out to join squad

Darren Gough returned to England yesterday afternoon after failing to overcome a knee problem which has affected him throughout this Ashes tour. Leaving Australia with the 32-year-old fast bowler, it must be felt, are his last chances of playing cricket for England again.

This is the fourth time Gough has broken down since sustaining an injury to his right knee while playing a one-day international for England in Dunedin, New Zealand, last February. He has had three operations to try to correct the condition. Now, in a last-ditch effort to save his career, he will take a three-month break from the game following a consultation with a specialist.

"I am going to go home to work hard on continually strengthening my knee," said England's most successful bowler since Ian Botham. "Obviously this is another setback and it is going to be a huge disappointment to miss the Ashes and the World Cup but I want to explore all the medical options that are open to me before I make any decisions over my future."

Gough has led the England attack and has been a talismanic figure in the dressing-room since the axing of your columnist. However, the smiling face cannot conceal a fiercely competitive nature that has taken 228 wickets in a 56-Test career.

In one-day cricket Gough was just as successful. In 111 games he has taken 174 wickets, a total that makes him England's highest wicket-taker in this form of the game.

"This is a huge blow," said the England coach, Duncan Fletcher, following his side's 385-run defeat in the first Test at the Gabba here yesterday. "He is a quality bowler and they are difficult to find... He is pretty young still, not young for a bowler but he had a few good years left and to say that your career has suddenly come to an end is pretty difficult. I don't know whether it is career-threatening injury. We will know in a week's time."

Bringing Gough to Australia was always going to be a risk for the England selectors because he had not proved in any way that he was fit enough to tour. Despite a period at the National Academy in Adelaide, he becomes the second player in a week to find himself on a flight back to Britain. The other casualty among England's injury-stricken fast bowling attack is Simon Jones, who ruptured knee ligaments during the first Test.

Making his way in the opposite direction is Gough's Yorkshire team-mate Chris Silverwood. The 27-year-old fast bowler will join the squad in Hobart, Tasmania, on Tuesday and can expect to go straight into the Test reckoning if he bowls well in England's game against Australia 'A'.

Silverwood will be competing for a place with Alex Tudor, who has already joined the squad as a replacement from the National Academy, and Stephen Harmison, who has been suffering from shin splints.