The saga of Darren Gough's knee has taken another turn for the worse, after he was withdrawn from England's one-day squad for the ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka next month. Gough, who first sustained the injury during the one-day series against New Zealand in March, will undergo his third operation in five months. He has now been ruled out of the rest of the series against India, and his participation in England's Ashes campaign later this winter has been thrown into serious doubt.

"This is a setback for me," admitted Gough in a statement, "but I know I can come back from this and at least I now have 11 weeks to concentrate on getting myself ready to have one last crack at the Australians in the Ashes this winter."

He made a successful comeback to England's one-day side during the NatWest series last month, but continued to be plagued by pain and swelling in his right knee. He was forced to pull out of the first Test against India at Lord's after failing to come through a Championship match for Yorkshire, and, with Andrew Caddick sidelined as well, he has since watched a succession of England pacemen, led by Matthew Hoggard, push their claims for automatic inclusion in the first-choice line-up.

Gough, who will be 32 next month, opted out of the winter tour of India and, as a consequence, was not selected for the Test series against New Zealand that followed. It has now been almost a year since he last played Test cricket, against Australia in the fifth Test at The Oval last August, and in that time he has been distracted by off-field problems, including the break-up of his marriage. Though he has taken 228 Test wickets in 56 games and has 174 one-day international wickets as well, his chances of adding to that tally in the near future are receding with every day.

"Darren has an ongoing knee complaint," said Duncan Fletcher, England's coach. "Surgery is not guaranteed to completely cure it. Our medical advice is that a further operation to clean out the knee joint is the best option for Darren if he is to have a realistic chance of playing in the Ashes series."

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