Mike Tindall will captain England against Argentina in their World Cup opener on Saturday (Uk time 9.30am, live on ITV) after Lewis Moody was ruled out with a knee injury.

England manager Martin Johnson said.”He is not quite ready to go today. We hoped he would be fit to start training but he is not quite there. The medics and the fitness guys take him through a progression of training and we hoped it would all be ready to go today but he is just a little bit short.”

James Haskell looks certain to make Moody’s place in the No 7 shirt. Johnson added: “We are very happy with the other guys so it is a very simple decision to hold him back another week. It is the opening game of what hopefully is a long tournament so you can force these things sometimes and that can go either way.

“Lews has been running around today so he is not a million miles away. It is just one of those calls, ‘are you ready to participate fully this week and play a Test match this Saturday?’ Not quite.”