GRAHAM THORPE’S hopes of reassuring the England selectors about his form and fitness before they pick their first team of the Ashes summer disappeared yesterday when he was ruled out of Surrey’s Frizzell County Championship match against Glamorgan at the Oval today with back trouble.

The selectors have always seen Thorpe as the linchpin of their batting against Australia because of his redoubtable Test record (6,636 runs in 98 matches at an average of 43) and his reputation for being at his best in a crisis but he has made a miserable start to the season.

Five championship innings have produced only 78 runs, 59 of them coming in one knock against Sussex, and he looked thoroughly out of sorts in scoring nine and a third-ball duck in Surrey’s humiliating innings defeat by Nottinghamshire at the Oval this week.

Now it appears that the back spasms which have troubled him increasingly in recent seasons may have something to do with the dearth of runs. He has been unable to practice as much as he would have liked, he has been kept out of all but two of Surrey’s one-day games and, when he has got to the crease, he has been restricted in his movement.

There is still plenty of time for him to reassert himself before the Ashes series starts at Lord’s on July 21 when the selectors would prefer to stick to the tried and trusted but, in the circumstances, they may decide to look at their other options against Bangladesh.

They meet on Sunday to choose the side for the first Test at Lord’s on May 26 (the second is at the Riverside a week later) and it may not be as straightforward as they first thought with even Andrew Strauss and Marcus Trescothick struggling to find their form. On top of that, Simon Jones, who has played only two championship games for Glamorgan, has also been ruled out of today’s game at the Oval with a lower back problem.

Surrey will try to avoid any hasty judgments as the internal investigation into ball-tampering during the championship game against Nottinghamshire continues. They had sought to complete their findings before facing Glamorgan today, but a spokesman said: “We will not be rushed by the constraints of the fixture list.”

Micky Stewart, a club stalwart, is heading the inquiry and Steve Rixon, the cricket manager, believes that an announcement may follow tomorrow. Glamorgan themselves yesterday lodged an official complaint with the ECB about alleged ball-tampering by Steve Kirby, the Gloucestershire bowler, at Cardiff on Sunday.

John Derrick, the coach, rushed on to the pitch to complain after he saw Kirby retrieve the ball from behind the pavilion. However, the umpires were unable to distinguish between normal damage caused by the bounce on a concrete car park floor and possible scuffing against the surface. Kirby has denied any wrongdoing.

Mike Fatkin, the Glamorgan chief executive, said: “The easy option might be to drop it, but if you are talking about something that you consider to be against the spirit of the game I think it would be wrong to let it lie. John feels particularly strongly about it and it is our duty as employer to back him up.”