Hoggard bowled at full tilt, but is not yet cleared for action

Hoggard bowled at pace on Wednesday, took part in fielding practice and also spent time batting in the indoor nets.

"He's come through practice pretty well but we don't know how his hand's going to react," said skipper Andrew Strauss.

Hoggard's bowling hand was injured when England A team-mate Tim Bresnan, stood on it during a game of touch rugby.

Interview: England stand-in captain Andrew Strauss

Interview: England bowler Steve Harmison

Report: England prepare for first Test

Sessions in an oxygen chamber have helped to speed up the healing process since the unfortunate accident last Saturday.

Hoggard was unable to grip a ball on Tuesday so a run of 32 consecutive Test appearances looked to be under threat.

The wound, which left two deep gashes, required six stitches and he still had tape over the injury on Wednesday.

Strauss was confident that he would have his most valuable seam-bowling commodity at his disposal as he skippers England for the first time in a Test.

He said: "We will have to leave it as long as possible, probably until the morning before we can make a decision on him. It may be that tonight we can make a decision but it may not be."

Earlier in the week, Hoggard said: "If I can hold a cricket ball, that's fine, but it's the catching and the batting that's going to be the difficult part, so we'll just have to see how well the stitches have held together.

"It's very frustrating to be fit in every other aspect and just have a couple of scratches on your hand.

TMS MESSAGE BOARD VIEW This Test will surely test the depth of both sides because they will both be without key players TMS: Have your say

"I'm dying to play on Thursday, so I'll be doing all I can, but we'll just have to wait and see how it is."

Without Andrew Flintoff, England will begin the four-Test campaign against Pakistan with just four front-line bowlers, supplemented by medium pacers Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell.

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

And it will be a major blow if he is ruled out as the team are already having to manage without four other bowlers.

Andrew Flintoff (ankle), Ashley Giles (hip), Simon Jones (knee) and James Anderson (back) are all missing.

Pakistan's bowling unit, meanwhile, has also been struck by injury.

Paceman Mohammad Asif (elbow) was ruled out of the match late on Wednesday and Shoaib Malik is a major doubt.