DURHAM’S Mark Davies is nursing another ankle injury, which may have contributed to his absence from the England squad to tour Bangladesh.
Davies was summoned to join the full squad in South Africa prior to the Test series, and played in one of the warm-up games when James Anderson and Ryan Sidebottom were injured.
With Anderson being rested from the Bangladesh trip, the vacancy has been filled by the shock call-up of 24-year-old Yorkshire all-rounder Ajmal Shahzad.
Durham coach Geoff Cook said: “I spoke to Ottis Gibson about Mark and he said the England hierarchy were very impressed with him in South Africa.
“He’d had quite a heavy workload with the England Performance Programme before that, and his body tends not to take too kindly to it.
He’s having a bit of a rest now.
We’re keeping him under observation, but he should be OK in two or three weeks.”
Davies also impressed on the England Lions tour to New Zealand last winter, but returned early because of an ankle problem, which required surgery and kept him out until mid-season.
Fellow Teessider Liam Plunkett has retained his place in both the Test and oneday squads for Bangladesh, and Cook is hopeful he will get some cricket.
“Liam is very much the type of cricketer who thrives on a match situation,” he said. “He likes to be able to perform, but on any tour these days the peripheral players don’t get much chance to push their cause.
“I’m told he’s been fine in the nets in South Africa. England coaches in the past have tried some technical alterations with him, but he’s more mature now and more able to stand up for himself.
“Hopefully he’s the next bowler in line for a Test place, but he’ll have competition from Shahzad and Luke Wright.”
Plunkett, Graham Onions and Paul Collingwood will miss Durham’s trip to Abu Dhabi as the second of the two Tests in Bangladesh is on March 20-24 and Durham depart on March 22.
Unless he does break into the England team, one match Davies will not want to miss next season is at Basingstoke, where he recorded his careerbest figures of eight for 24 in 2008.
It has just been announced that Durham will be visiting the May’s Bounty ground for a third time after Hampshire decided they wanted to revert to playing one match a season there.
Durham appeared in what was expected to be the last first-class match at Basingstoke in 2000 as Hampshire announced that all future home games would be staged at the Rose Bowl. They decamped for the first time for Durham’s 2008 visit because of a pop concert at their headquarters.
Durham’s Player of the Year Ian Blackwell has been recovering from a shoulder operation and is about to start bowling again, while Neil Killeen will shortly start a running programme following his achilles operation last season.
The drainage work being carried out on the Riverside ground progressed well during the cold weather as machines were able to work better on the hard ground than in the wet conditions experienced in November and early December.
All Test match grounds are having this work carried out.
It costs approximately £550,000, and is provided by the ECB All the drains are now installed and the contractors have begun the sand-slitting which is required between the drains.
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