Mitchell Marsh ruled out of CB Series after back injury

Emerging allrounder Mitchell Marsh has suffered a major setback after being told he must not bowl for the rest of this season due to a stress injury in his back. As a result, Marsh will not play in the remainder of the Commonwealth Bank Series but his time-frame for a comeback won't be determined until he has scans in Melbourne on Saturday.

Marsh, 20, has been part of Australia's squad throughout the tri-series but could not oust his fellow allrounder Daniel Christian from the side. After a lengthy spell in the SCG nets on Thursday, ahead of Friday's match against Sri Lanka, Marsh told the team physio Alex Kountouris of pain in his back and scans revealed the problem.

"Mitch complained of quite significant lower-back pain during yesterday's training session at the SCG," Kountouris said. "After assessing him and considering his age we organised scans in Sydney last night that have confirmed our suspicions of a lower-back bone stress injury.

"He will have further scans tomorrow in Melbourne to determine the extent of the injury, which will help outline the period of rest required from cricket. We expect that he will not play as a bowler for the remainder of this season but will be in a position to provide further information once we have the results of tomorrow's scans."

No replacement player has yet been named for Marsh ahead of Australia's match against India at the Gabba on Sunday. Ricky Ponting is expected to captain Australia again in that game after Michael Clarke confirmed he was unlikely to have recovered fully from the hamstring injury that kept him out of Friday's match against Sri Lanka.

"I've got a little hamstring strain," Clarke said on Channel Nine. "I'm confident it's on the mend. It's probably unlikely I'll be fit for Brisbane though. I've had a lot of work over the last couple of days and I think the physio Alex would prefer me to rest in Brisbane. But I'm not far away at all."