England coach Fletcher confident of Vaughan fitness by AFP

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Event:

ICC World Cup 2006/07

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DateLine: 9th March 2007

 

England coach Duncan Fletcher did his best to downplay concerns over the fitness of captain Michael Vaughan as his side prepared for their second and final World Cup warm-up match against reigning champions Australia.

 

Vaughan, who was sidelined for much of last year with a recurrence of his longstanding knee problem, missed England's victorious tri-series final win over hosts Australia with a hamstring injury.

 

It is now more than a month since the Yorkshire batsman last spent 50 overs in the field during a one-day match, against New Zealand in Brisbane on February 6, England easing him back in with a 10-over stint against minnows Bermuda in their 241 run opening warm-up game on Monday.

 

Now Fletcher is looking to give his skipper 25-30 overs of fielding against Australia here Friday and the former Zimbabwe captain insisted this wouldn't leave Vaughan under-prepared for England's opening World Cup group C match against New Zealand in St Lucia on March 16.

 

"He's building up quite nicely," said Fletcher of Vaughan at England's hotel on Thursday. "He's slowly increasing that workload and he will increase that workload against Australia where he will probably only field for 25, 30 overs.

 

"As long as he has done enough work, which we know he has, putting a lot of work into his legs to get his hamstring right and a lot of fitness work in the gym, so I don't think it will be too much of a problem."

 

Vaughan made 18 against Bermuda and looked in no discomfort during his brief innings and fielding stint in that match.

 

"From a batting point of view, he's batted as much as he could and hopefully he gets another good knock tomorrow (Friday)," said Fletcher.

 

"We're pretty confident it won't have much of an effect going into that game against New Zealand."

 

England have won their last three one-day internationals against Australia, including a 2-0 tri-series final triumph, and although Fletcher would welcome another victory, he said he planned to use 13 players in Friday's match to have a look at England's bowling options.

 

"We're not 100 percent sure on what combination we are going to go with," said Fletcher, who stressed pacemen Jon Lewis (ankle) and Jimmy Anderson (back) could still force their way in after missing the Australia finale.

 

"We finished off with a group of bowlers who did well for us in Australia but we still believe we've got two other good bowlers in Jon Lewis and Jimmy Anderson so it's going to be a difficult decision as to who we leave out and who we bring in."

 

Looking at the significance of Friday's match, Fletcher said: "It could be pretty crucial, It would be nice to win another game against Australia.

 

"But it's a difficult game because we want to have a look at some players and how we use them could be very important."

 

Fletcher said he expected Australia, who thrashed Zimbabwe by 106 runs in their first warm-up game, to adopt a similar approach. "They will probably use it in the same way.

 

"If they use it as a practice game there might not be as much significance as people make out. We will just have to see how the game unfolds."

(Article: Copyright © 2007 AFP)