Lion Shahzad has chance to claw way into England reckoning

Graham Onions and Bresnan’s Yorkshire team-mate Ajmal Shahzad are the two most likely to replace him in the squad which will be chosen on Sunday to take on the Sri Lankans in the first Test at Cardiff next week.

The uncapped Jade Dernbach is also in the 12 to take on the tourists in a four-day fixture at Derby, but the Surrey seamer must rate the rank outsider of three to step up, despite having flown out to Colombo as a World Cup replacement when Shahzad suffered a hamstring injury two months ago.

The England and Wales Cricket Board stopped short two days ago of ruling Bresnan out for the entire series, after a recurrence of the 26-year-old’s calf trouble.

But a statement suggested he is unlikely to play any part.

Bresnan has been troubled by the injury since shortly after the end of the Ashes, but was nonetheless able to play a prominent role for England in their World Cup campaign in February and March.

He had to fly home from Australia and missed England’s last five one-day internationals there at the start of the year.

But he was fit again in time to face Holland in Nagpur in his country’s World Cup opener, and to feature for Yorkshire last week. After Bresnan was ruled out of the LV County Championship match against Roses rivals Lancashire, which starting in Liverpool yesterday, he underwent scans on Monday.

The ECB statement said: “This is a reoccurrence of an injury Bresnan first sustained earlier in the year during the ODI series against Australia.

“A rehabilitation and recovery programme will be established in the coming days following further medical assessment.”

Stuart Broad, James Anderson and Chris Tremlett are the most likely seam contingent for the series opener against Sri Lanka.

Of the possibles to push them for a place in the first Test, Shahzad has so far won just one cap – when he replaced the injured Bresnan for last summer’s Old Trafford victory over Bangladesh.

Onions has not played for his country since his defiant batting heroics at No 11 in the drawn new year Test against South Africa in Cape Town in 2010, having since suffered and recovered from a career-threatening back injury.