England spinner Graeme Swann ruled out for rest of ODI series in Australia and will fly home due to back injury

“There is no point keeping him here any longer,” Andy Flower said. “It is unlikely he will be able to play any part in this series at all.”

Could Flower perhaps have been more proactive on this? Swann has already been hors de combat for more than a week, and a little time off has always seemed like a commonsense solution, especially when you consider the irrelevance of this tacked-on one-day series.

Alec Stewart, the former England wicketkeeper, has actively welcomed news of Swann’s latest twinge. “As long as [Tim] Bresnan and Swann come through their injuries, in a silly way England will have benefited before going off to the World Cup,” Stewart told the Cricinfo website.

But Flower has other reasons to be worried. For one thing, he has said before that Swann’s form dips when he spends any length of time out of the game. For another, Bresnan’s torn calf may involve as much as a four-to-six-week lay-off, which would put him right up against the start of the tournament on Feb 19.

Even though the World Cup doesn’t get going for real until the quarter-finals, which start on March 23, bowlers need time to rediscover rhythm and full bowling fitness after a tricky injury like this one.

Take Stuart Broad: even though he has been turning his arm over gently for a week or two, on his return from a torn stomach muscle, he won’t be risked in a match until the players arrive in Asia.

England feel obliged to put a brave face on this Australian one-day series, for fear of being portrayed as whingers. After all, many of these players have volunteered, of their own free will, to play in the Indian Premier League rather than rest in April.

But the way injuries have been stacking up - at a rate of one or two per game if you count the Australians - it’s clear that the crazy scheduling is hurting England’s chances of lifting the World Cup for the first time.

Flower was asked if he would be pleasantly surprised to go into the first matches of the tournament with a fully fit squad. The short answer was yes.

“Given we have only three nights at home between the two tours, it is possible we might not have 15 fit guys,” he said. “The timeline will be tight for Swann and Bresnan.”

The decision to take Luke Wright to the World Cup as a spare batting allrounder has left England a little short of bowling back-up.

Assuming that most of the pitches encourage a two-spinner attack, they only have James Tredwell and Ajmal Shahzad in reserve.

Flower has said before that the games are quite a way apart, giving him a chance to call up an injury replacement if anyone should suffer a serious problem. We can assume that Chris Tremlett will be on standby at The Oval, while another group of alternative options will be involved in the England Lions tour of the West Indies.

Flower described this as “a slight complication, because they will be quite a long way away”.

If the worst comes to the worst, England will have to hope for a re-enactment of Alastair Cook’s call-up five years ago, when he was rushed from Antigua to Nagpur, and scored a century on Test debut.

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