It's a case of seeing how fast the skin heals Matthew Hoggard

He was spiked by team-mate Tim Bresnan during a warm-up for the England A match against Pakistan at Canterbury.

Hoggard was cut on the palm and needed six stitches in hospital.

He will not bowl during the remainder of the game but was named on Sunday in the squad for the first Test, which starts at Lord's on Thursday.

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"We'll just have to see how well the stitches hold up. If it's just going to be a bit of pain I'm confident I can get through that," said Hoggard.

"The hand feels a bit numb but the cuts are superficial and I am reasonably confident I will be fit for the Test.

"It is a warm-up we have done hundreds of times and it is just one of those things. I didn't feel pain at the time and it has not been throbbing so that's a good sign."

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Hoggard passed 200 Test wickets during the recent series against Sri Lanka and is currently fifth in the LG ICC Test list, with only Muttiah Muralitharan, Makhaya Ntini, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath ahead of him.

England's seam bowling options for Lord's are already limited because of injuries to Andrew Flintoff (ankle), Simon Jones (knee) and James Anderson (back).

"These things tend to happen in a cluster. It never rains - it pours," said Hoggard, who has played England's last 32 Tests in succession.

"When you have one injury you seem to get more, and we are just in a very bad trot of luck."

Hoggard was only named in the England A team for the game at the request of England skipper Michael Vaughan, who himself is out of action for several months following knee surgery.

"It is important to play games before you go into a Test," said Hoggard, who has only played one Championship game since the third Test against Sri Lanka ended on 5 June.

"Unfortunately there were no other four-dayers for me in between, so the logical choice was to play here.

"Michael asked me, I said yes; we both spoke to (chairman of selectors) David Graveney and told him I wanted to play - so here I am."