Giles to fly home for hip surgery

Ashley Giles will fly home to undergo hip surgery after England's third Test against Pakistan. This means that he will miss the five one-dayers, but he hopes to be fit for the tour of India in March, the start of an intensive 19 months' cricket for the England side.

Football physiotherapists have advised that Giles may need three months to recover after the operation which will take place in Cambridge two days after he returns to England. He will spend Christmas on crutches.

Giles has been carrying the injury since April, when he damaged his right hip playing for Warwickshire against Sussex in April. He missed the two-Test series against Bangladesh but physiotherapy and cortisone injections allowed him to play in the Ashes and the current Pakistan tour. But now the effects of the injections are wearing off.

"It's got worse between the first and second Test," he admitted to reporters on the eve of the third Test. "I've tried to manage it but I'm fed up with it being in front of my mind. You feel old once you start to carry injuries and I feel I need a bit of closure on this now by getting it sorted."

The surgery will be performed by Richard Villar who has operated on many sportsmen. "Surgery will involve going in to either repair or whip out a piece of cartilage," Giles explained. "There is also a little bit of a bone spur on the ball of my hip and he [Villar] may have to shave that down because that may be the thing that is catching on the cartilage.

"I have worries because there can always be complications when you go into a major joint. But it comes hand in hand with the job. You are always going to pick up injuries but if you want to perform at your best you have to get them done."