England eye Flintoff boost

England skipper Andrew Strauss endured a frustrating final day in the field © Getty Images

Attention immediately turned to the absent artillery following England’s draw with Pakistan in the first Test on the flattest of Lord’s surfaces.

Both teams should reinforce their attacking potential later in the npower series, with Andrew Flintoff due to return to lead his country on his home Old Trafford turf next week and Pakistan now optimistic Shoaib Akhtar - England’s nemesis over the winter - will play a part too.

Flintoff attempts to improve fitness levels for Lancashire in a county championship contest with Kent starting on Tuesday and is scheduled to consign Andrew Strauss’ run as Test captain to its shortest possible stint.

Shoaib, 30, arrives in England on Tuesday, with a return to action in the third match at Headingley on August 4 a distinct possibility, according to Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer.

Without the respective pacemen, both sides lacked a cutting edge in a Lord’s opener in which only 31 wickets fell in five days.

“He will be fresh and firing,” said Woolmer, anticipating Flintoff’s return.

“It will be tougher for us with him in the side, but we haven’t played as well as we would have liked to in this situation.”

Pakistan’s keenness to throw the new ball to Shoaib once again, following a stress fracture of the ankle, is understandable given his destructive influence on the three-match series last year when he claimed 17 wickets.

“We would like to think he’s in line for Headingley, but there is still plenty of work for him to do,” said Woolmer.

Shoaib Akhtar is progressing well in his recovery from an ankle injury

“It will depend on how he comes through the next 10 to 15 days.

“The situation is that we are ‘loading’ his injury - that means we are trying to encourage healing.

“He’s already been running and doing shadow bowling without any pain.

“When he comes here we will be bowling him off a short run-up for a period of time; then we will gradually increase that ‘loading’, and it will depend on whether he feels pain or not on how quickly we can do that.

“He’s been training hard - cardiovascular-wise he’s as fit as he’s ever been, so we have just got to get that foot right.

“In the end it will be up to him to tell us whether he is in pain or not.”

Fellow fast bowler Mohammad Asif is out for at least another fortnight as he rests an elbow injury back in Pakistan, but on the batting front vice-captain Younis Khan (knee) is now fully fit.

The sides head to Manchester level after Strauss opted to eat into the final day’s over allocation, setting the tourists a fanciful 380-run target in 80 overs.

England prised out only four victims, however, before Strauss called time on the quest shortly before 5.30pm.

“My thoughts are that if you are going to bowl a side out on the last day you need two new balls,” said Woolmer.

Strauss, though, was happy to move on - following the recent one-day defeat by Sri Lanka - with parity confirmed despite his insistence that England can win without Flintoff.

Andrew Flintoff is expected to return to England colours in the second Test © Getty Images

“The selectors have got a tough decision to make somewhere,” Strauss said of the debate over who should make way to accommodate Flintoff.

“But the guys are sticking their hands up, and that is all you can ask.

“I am more than happy to support Fred when we get to Old Trafford; we are definitely a better side with him in it. There’s definitely the raw materials there to win without him.

“But sometimes you need to play without a player like that not to rely on him.

“Obviously we want ‘Fred’ to be fit for every Test we play - but as with (Steve) Harmison or (Matthew) Hoggard, you do get injuries at times.”

When left-arm spinner Monty Panesar’s second wicket reduced Pakistan to 141 for four a dozen minutes before tea there was a brief glimmer of hope.

“It was disappointing not to be able to force a result - we looked good for a while when we had four wickets down,” said Strauss.

“But the pitch did not break up as much as we would have liked.

“In order to get a positive result, we felt we needed to keep men around the bat and get the Pakistan strokemakers to play a game that wasn’t natural to them.

“Monty got extravagant movement at times and sometimes he got too much down the hill.

“To win we probably needed one of those days where everything went right.”