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Matthew Hayden must shake off a lingering achilles problem if he is to prevent further rearrangements in Australia’s batting line-up for Thursday’s first Test against West Indies in Jamaica. The squad is already without Michael Clarke, who will travel to the Caribbean on Wednesday, and the loss of Hayden would mean two changes to what was previously a settled line up.

“He’s probably 50-50 at best,” Ricky Ponting said. “He was supposed to be fully tested [on Tuesday], that didn’t happen. He has actually woken up a lot better [on Tuesday] than he has in the last two days, if he wakes up well [on Wednesday] they will probably do some sort of testing.”

Hayden noticed the pain in his left ankle while doing fitness work during his Indian Premier League stint. “He was doing some routine running that he does as part of his conditioning and he just started to feel it,” the physio Alex Kountouris told AAP. “These things come on almost nothing, and then they hang around and get sorer. It just progresses over a period of time as opposed to one incident where you take off for a run and it goes.”

He has been able to bat in the nets but has struggled to jog or sprint. “It gets stirred up a little bit,” Kountouris said. “So we’re just trying to be as conservative as we can.”

Simon Katich sealed his spot with a fine all-round performance in the tour game while Brad Hodge appeared in the opening fixture instead of Hayden. Hodge, Katich or Michael Hussey could be elevated to open if Hayden is ruled out, but Katich is the most likely choice, with Hodge stepping in at No. 5. A reshuffle could improve the chances of the allrounder Ashley Noffke coming in to add extra bowling depth, although he was not selected in the opening game.

Source:Cricket News

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