England sweat on fresh calf injury for Anderson

England have suffered an early injury setback with veteran seam bowler James Anderson an uncertain participant in the remainder of the first Test at Edgbaston after a fresh injury to his right calf.

Anderson bowled just four overs with the new ball after Australia captain Tim Paine won the toss and elected to bowl at Edgbaston.

The right-armer then left the field feeling tightness in his right calf but returned soon after as Australia reached 3-83 at lunch.

However, Anderson was sent for scans at the lunch break, and while he returned to the ground later in the day, the England camp were keeping their cards close to their chest with no official update to be provided during play.

The 37-year-old missed last week's Ireland Test after failing to recover from the low-grade right calf tear he sustained playing for his county side Lancashire against Durham on July 2.

Following a series of fitness tests this week in Birmingham, the 149-Test veteran was passed fit to play, but now England appear to be down a specialist seam bowler, for the short term at least.

Anderson, Test cricket's most prolific fast bowler with 575 wickets, has said he has no intention of calling time on his international career any time soon, and his skipper Joe Root believes the seamer is only getting better with age.

"He wants to keep going," Root said on the eve of the first Test.

"He's had a couple of niggles over the last couple of years but every time he's come back stronger.

"You look at the workload he had over in Australia (in 2017-18, where he took 17 wickets in five Tests) for example, I think he proved a point out there.

"He was by far our best seamer throughout the course of the five games, and the last couple of years in England he's proven to be very difficult to come up against."

2019 Qantas Ashes Tour of England

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c), Cameron Bancroft, Pat Cummins, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Peter Siddle, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Matthew Wade, David Warner.

England squad: Joe Root (c), Moeen Ali, Jimmy Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes (vc), Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.

First Test: August 1-5,Edgbaston

Tour match: Australians v Worcestershire, August 7-9

Second Test: August 14-18,Lord's

Third Test: August 22-26, Headingley

Tour match: Australians v Derbyshire, August 29-31

Fourth Test: September 4-8, Old Trafford

Fifth Test: September 12-16, The Oval