Yorkshire were today in contact with England chairman of selectors David Graveney to tell him that Chris Silverwood has been ruled out of the county's next two AXA League matches because of shin soreness.

I understand that England would today have included Silverwood in their squad for next week's Texaco Trophy series against South Africa, but they may now have to reconsider the situation in view of his injury.

Graveney may still pick Silverwood and also name someone as cover in case the Yorkshire fast bowler remains unfit for the first Texaco match at The Oval on Thursday, or they may decide to leave him out altogether so that he has a longer time in which to recover.

If that happens, then Silverwood would be ineligible to play for Yorkshire in their championship match against Gloucestershire which starts at Gloucester, also on Thursday.

And with Darren Gough a certainty for the Texaco series, it means Yorkshire will be without their two leading fast bowlers until the important Benson and Hedges Cup quarter-final clash with Durham at Headingley on May 27.

Silverwood was forced to leave the field after bowling four overs for Yorkshire at Northampton yesterday and he parted company with the team last night to travel home to see Yorkshire and England physiotherapist, Wayne Morton.

He will have further treatment over the weekend from Morton who has told Yorkshire that Silverwood will not be fit for tomorrow's AXA League match at Northampton or Tuesday's fixture against Glamorgan in the same competition at Cardiff.

"At the moment, Chris needs to rest but it is not yet possible to say when he will be able to return and we are keeping England fully briefed on the situation," added Morton.

Silverwood said yesterday: "I experienced some shin soreness at Headingley last week but it did not bother me too much at the time. It has got steadily worse at Northampton, however, and I was forced to leave the field."

Silverwood has been bowling exceptionally well all season, particularly in the first two championship matches in which he captured 14 wickets at 11.85 apiece, and he has nicely worked off his own frustrations which built up during the winter when he was on tour with England in the West Indies but had his feet up in all but two games.

'Spoons' has worked tremendously hard at his game and now stands on the threshold of the England career which his mentor, Steve Oldham, always knew would beckon one day.

Yet cricket is not an obsession with Silverwood, who appreciates that there are other things in life as well - like his wife, Emma, for instance.

Having been idle for much of the time with England, he had the chance to fly on at the end of the series to join Yorkshire on their pre-season tour of South Africa, but he turned it down.

"I had been away all summer and winter and it was important to have some family life with Emma before it all started up again with Yorkshire again," he said.

Not only is Silverwood clever on the field but he's pretty wise off it.

*South Africa fast bowler Roger Telemachus sees a specialist this weekend, fearing that his tour is over before it has started due to a dislocated right shoulder suffered in practice.

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