Graham Thorpe has spoken of his immense disappointment at being sidelined once again because of injury.

The Surrey left-hander has been ruled out of the Third npower Test at Trent Bridge because of a cracked bone in his right hand, sustained while facing a blistering burst from Australian paceman Brett Lee during the defeat at Lord's.

Thorpe had already been out of the game for nearly seven weeks before the Second npower Test with a damaged calf.

After his heroics during England's victorious tours of Pakistan and Sri Lanka during the winter, Thorpe has been brought crashing back to earth.

"The hand specialist has said I will be out of action for three weeks, leaving me little chance of making an impression in the Ashes series, and what I thought was going to be one of the most exciting summers of my career is turning out to be the most disappointing," he said in his column on the Channel 4 website, cricket4.com.

"I have played the game long enough not to get too carried away by success or failure, and even after our recent victories I knew the game could come back and hit us right where it hurts.

"That has happened to me quite literally with two separate injuries keeping me out for nearly three months of the season. From a personal point of view I started June feeling very positive and with high expectations for the rest of the summer.

"Normally I start the English season slowly but this year I was in good form straight away and felt I was ready to take on the best team in the world. This was my chance to live up to the world-class tag that had been placed on me after success in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

"I believe you have to measure yourself against the best and I went into this Ashes series thinking that we could compete with them at last.

"However I have suffered two injury setbacks with the calf strain keeping me out for six weeks and now the broken bone in my hand which will rule me out for three weeks. This latest injury is a real hammer blow and has come at the worst possible time.

"I simply cannot describe how disappointed I feel at the moment. It has come as such a shock after having so much success since I returned to the England team last summer."

Although Thorpe may be out for three weeks, there must be some doubt whether he will play in the Fourth Test at Headingley because he will have had so little match practice for the best part of three months.

He said: "There will be little action left in the series by the time I've recovered from this injury and I'll feel a good opportunity has passed me by. As a player you always look forward to an Ashes series and after having six weeks off I was determined to come back and make a mark.

"When I was struck on the hand by Brett Lee I knew I had suffered a bad injury. I could not make a fist or hold the bat properly and probably wouldn't have come out after tea. Lee was pumped up but I was determined not to show that he had hurt me and I was in pain, but in the end he got me out a couple of balls later."

Thorpe continued: "It was a very hard Test for me anyway. I went into the match without any match practice but felt I could do a job for England, and I don't regret it.

"We have not competed with Australia so far in this series and from a team perspective that is the most disappointing aspect of the first two Tests. At the start of the series we said it would be vital to take our chances but we have dropped catches, which has naturally increased the pressure on us.

"It's an extremely tall order for us to come back and win the series, but what we can do though is get back to the standards we set over the winter and stand up to Australia. They have had it all their own way and we just don't know how they'll react if we start putting them under pressure. We are simply not helping ourselves at the moment and we need to start giving ourselves a chance of winning."

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