Poor batting wore James Pattinson out A SHATTERED, tearful James Pattinson has predicted that although his Ashes campaign is over, ended by yet another stress fracture of his lower back, Australia can still bounce back and turn the series around in the remaining three Tests. Although Pattinson will remain with the touring party until the end of the Old Trafford Test starting on August 1, his personal campaign finished when he pulled up at the end of the Lord's Test complaining about hip and lower back soreness. He had hoped that it was merely an old injury flaring up, in which case a pain-killing injection might have kept him going, but scans have revealed early signs of a new stress fracture and now he faces another long rehabilitation, working out in the MCG gym on his own, to try to get himself ready for the second chapter of the Ashes contest in Australia in November. Australian team performance general manager Pat Howard said although the selectors have good resources at their disposal in the same time zone -- the Australia A team on tour in South Africa -- there would be no SOS sent to Pat Cummins or any other fast bowler just yet. "There's five bowlers here, there's plenty to pick from, so the selectors are very happy with the guys they've got," Howard said last night. There's guys who assess pitches so they're having a look well in advance at both Manchester and Durham, but at the moment it's not a necessity. Younger bowlers, faster bowlers, you have to plan for possible injuries, and you have three of our six bowlers born in 1990, so we put plenty of planning into that, we expected that and while we don't want it to, we're realists and we understand it does happen. Clearly it has happened once too often for Pattinson, who spoke with tears welling in his eyes of how he had hoped he had put his long history of injuries behind him. Yeah, it's pretty shattering. Obviously I had a pretty good lead-in. I left India pretty disappointed with how we went over there and obviously put my head down and worked pretty hard to achieve good things over here. It's been ripped away from me, which is disappointing. The constant fear was that with Australia's batsmen performing so poorly at Lord's, especially in the first innings where they scarcely batted as long as in a one-day international, that the lack of rest would impact heaviest of all on the fast bowlers, and certainly Pattinson's injury provides a warning that the pacemen cannot continue to shoulder such a heavy burden. "When you go out doing what you do, it's hard on the body and in an ideal world you'd like a bit more rest than that," Pattinson said. It's far from ideal . . . I'm still hoping one day my body is going to mature and I'll be able to do that back-up not just for two Tests but five. The 23-year-old is adamant that despite losing the Lord's Test by the second-heaviest margin in terms of runs in Ashes history, Australia is not far behind England, if it is behind at all. "It's not an ideal situation but we were so close at Nottingham," he said. If we play like we did at Nottingham, we showed we are not far behind or on an even par. The bowlers have done a good job and we have fielded quite well. We need one day to click and we will be on. Howard, meanwhile, insisted the right decision had been made in removing coach Mickey Arthur on the eve of the Ashes and replacing him with Darren Lehmann. Even though there are two Tests we lost, one was close, the other we didn't play well enough, clearly, I think . . . I don't move away. It was the right decision," he said. Howard did admit, however, that the batting problems Australia is facing might not be remedied immediately. I think that's a fair question, and when Australia and Australia A over the same weekend play and the highest scores were Glenn Maxwell and Moises Henriques getting 60s and 70s, our ability to bat a long time needs to improve and we need to work with the states to enforce that message around batting for a long time and batting with patience. Making sure Sheffield Shield cricket goes into the fourth day so we start getting footmarks, we start getting spinners bowling more in the Shield so they get used to that as well. There's a big process there to get right, and it's going to take time.