From Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Chief Cricket Correspondent in Brisbane

HE NEARLY made it, but not quite. Darren Gough came a good deal closer to playing for England in next week's first Test against Australia here at the Woollongabba Cricket Ground than anyone, himself included, could reasonably have expected, given the long history of the injury to his right knee. But yesterday's decision to leave him out of the three-day game against Queensland, which starts today on a different ground in Brisbane, meant that his return to international cricket will be postponed at least until the second Test in Adelaide. The success of Simon Jones at Perth earlier this week means that this news comes as less of a blow than it might have been in other circumstances. It may to some extent have saved the management from repeating the mistake made in the middle of last summer when they rushed Gough back into the one-day side on a wave of wishful thinking, for which Gough's own enthusiasm was partly responsible. This time the rehabilitation has been more carefully controlled and there is a good chance that he will be able to play a grade match for a Brisbane team before, at long last, he takes a serious part in a first-class match against Australia A in Hobart between the first and second Tests.

Even if Gough, among whose remaining ambitions is to captain Yorkshire, were to enjoy the last and loudest laugh before this winter is over, it is unlikely that they will name part of Headingley after him for at least 50 years. If he were an Australian it would be different. Decisions about his immediate future were taken yesterday after he had done some vigorous bowling in the Peter Burge nets, just through the Bill Brown gates, next door to the Ray Lindwall nursery ground at the Allan Border Field, a relatively new cricketing centre where the match against Queensland is being played.

"He could have played in this game," Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, said, "but we don't know how he would have reacted after a three-day game and whether he could have played in the first Test, so we feel that someone we want to play in the Test should get another game under his belt. If we had one more game before the Test he would probably have played here."

Gough said that it was the right decision for the team in case the knee had stiffened up after playing in a first-class game for only the second time since the end of the 2001 season. He has had three operations on the knee since March and only when he tests it on a hard ground in a match will anyone be sure that some hard training has paid off. "I'm determined to be fit for as much of this tour as possible," he said. "I think I've surprised people that I'm bowling off my full run already."

It is just as well for Gough, and the team, that there is a scheduled three-day match after the first Test. There is, though, more danger of rain in Hobart than almost anywhere else, so the need to give him a really thorough workout there could yet be unfulfilled.

It is typical of the hopelessly lopsided nature of the modern tour itinerary that this weekend's match is the second to last first-class game of the tour outside the Test series itself. Already there are murmured indications from senior players that the start of the tour has been too rushed and that the injured players could have done with another week to prepare for the first Test. Neither Michael Vaughan nor Andrew Flintoff, who was described in advance of today's contest as having no better than a 50-50 chance of playing, is completely ready. There is obviously some concern that Vaughan is having to start again with a knee officially rated as being only "80 per cent recovered" from his arthroscopy after the final Test against India in September.

Despite Robert Key's promising start to his first senior tour, it was much more important to the England team that Vaughan should be fit than it was that Gough should get back earlier than expected. The success of the Vaughan/Marcus Trescothick opening partnership is recognised as being almost crucial to England's chance of making a decent start to the Ashes series here, but the fact that, Andrew Caddick apart, only Key and Nasser Hussain have managed to make a fifty in the first three games, is an indication of how difficult it is to come to Australia cold and to start reeling off boundaries. The consolation is that Vaughan is such a natural cricketer that he usually starts tours and seasons well.

Australia had some good news yesterday when Jason Gillespie declared himself fit for the Gabba. He was due to play for South Australia in a one-day game against New South Wales today, his first match since pulling a calf muscle a month ago in the first Test against Pakistan in Colombo.

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