England, Pakistan struggling to cope with player injuries

Getting team on the field for the second Test at Old Trafford starting today is threatening to become a major achievement for England and Pakistan as both sides try to cope with mounting injury lists.

Last week England suffered a major setback when Andrew Flintoff, who missed the drawn series opener at Lord's, was ruled out for the rest of the reason with an ankle injury.

England hoped the star all-rounder would return to captain them for the second match of the series at his Lancashire home ground. Instead he faces a fresh operation.

And pace bowling resources were further depleted on Tuesday when Durham quick Liam Plunkett was ruled out of this match, and the third Test at Headingley, with a side strain.

Already Ashes-winning captain Michael Vaughan (knee), fast bowler Simon Jones (knee) and spinner Ashley Giles (hip), England at least have the consolation of being at home where replacements from the county game are plentiful in number, if not quality.

Pakistan, though, have been equally hard-hit. They remain without the pace trio who were all absent at Lord's: Shoaib Akhtar (ankle), Mohammad Asif (elbow) and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, who has been ruled out of the whole series with a groin problem.

Batsmen Younis Khan (knee) and Shoaib Malik (elbow) are, however, available for selection once again.

Sri Lanka are in a dilemma over the role that former captain Sanath Jayasuriya will play when the two-Test series against South Africa starts today.

The depleted tourists, on the other hand, appear to have worked out the combination that will take the field at the Sinhalese sports club under their first black captain Ashwell Prince.

The contrasting mood in the rival camps is unexpected. The South Africans were the ones in trouble in the absence of three top stars in regular captain Graeme Smith and leading all-rounders Jacques Kallis and Shaun Pollock.

Sri Lanka are, however, anything but settled despite their successful tour of England recently where they fought back to draw the Test series 1-1 and blanked the hosts 5-0 in the one-dayers.

The hosts must decide if Jayasuriya, 37, should play in the middle-order or risk sending him as opener at the expense of the younger Michael Vandort to accommodate a fifth bowler.

Jayasuriya controversially brought out of Test retirement by the new chief selector Asantha de Mel in May and rushed to England as an additional member of the side.

The left-hander was ignored for the first two Tests by the team management, but played in the third at Nottingham in the middle order and scored four runs in each innings.

Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka's most successful Test batsman with 6,621 runs in 103 matches, has not scored a half-century in his last 15 innings even though he makes runs regularly in one-day cricket.

South Africa, meanwhile, are confident of putting up a good fight even though Smith and Kallis are recovering at home from injuries and Pollock is not available for the first Test following the birth of his second child.