The panic surrounding Michael Clarke’s fitness is showing no sign of subsiding, with the skipper still holed up in London working on the back injury which threatens to derail Australia’s Ashes campaign.

Clarke remains in severe doubt for Australia’s Champions Trophy opener against England on Saturday, as teammates begin preparations without him in Birmingham.

The Australian camp have played down Clarke’s latest drama as a “precaution”, and a decision on his availability for the first match of the one-day tournament is likely to be left until the last minute.

However, the fact Clarke remains in London, where he is seeing a back specialist, suggests he’s at long odds to be rushed back into the line-up with the all-important five-Test Ashes series still ahead of him.

Clarke, accompanied by team physio Alex Kountouris, worked around the clock on Wednesday to settle down his lower back, which he aggravated on the flight over to the UK – ruling him out of Australia’s two warm-up matches.

The 32-year-old has had to manage a chronic back complaint since his teenage years but, alarmingly for the Australians, it seems the flare-ups are becoming more common and harder to manage.

For the first time in his career, Clarke missed a match through injury on the failed Indian tour earlier this year.

But before Australia’s departure to the UK, Clarke said a tough few weeks of training had convinced him he was back on top of his injury.

The latest developments suggest that’s far from the case.

Without Clarke, Australia’s batting line-up collapsed to be all out for 65 in their crushing warm-up loss to India on Tuesday.

It was an unpleasant insight into how vulnerable Australia would be in the Ashes, if their outstanding skipper continued to be crippled by flare-ups.

Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson says the team is disappointed but not despondent about their big loss to India.

“It hurts. You don’t like to lose, especially like that. But it was a practice match,” Johnson said.

“Hopefully, we’ve got our bad one out of the way. We’ve obviously got a few things to work on but we’re coming up against England in the first game and we’ll be ready for that.”

In more positive news for Australia’s Ashes hopes, veteran opener Chris Rogers made another county cricket century, smashing 161 not out for Middlesex against Sussex at Lord’s.