Louis Smith has expressed his and the English men's team's delight after they effectively won the Commonwealth Games artistic team gold medal this afternoon.

Smith, who is back competing for the first time since the 2012 Olympic Games after taking an extended break from the sport, performed on the pommel horse - his speciality - yesterday and the parallel bars today to help them to the verge of gold.

Their victory is not official quite yet, though, because there are still teams who need to complete their six rotations later this evening. Once that is finalised at around 6.30pm, England will be confirmed as the winners and collect their medals.

England were always ahead in this afternoon's session, but it wasn't completely serene as Sam Oldham appeared to badly injure his ankle when trying to land a vault in the opening rotation and couldn't compete for the remainder.

Speaking to Sports Mole after the session, Smith, 25, said: "We feel great, I mean obviously coming round to the last two pieces it wasn't quite the same without Sam there. That's a hiccup and that's what you've got to overcome. You have to pull together as a team. We have to keep Nile vibrant and fresh - he's the young one that's come into this.

"We just had to keep the spirits up and do a job and, ultimately, do it for Sam."

Oldham was carried out of the arena in a wheelchair and will now be replaced by Nile Wilson in the individual all-around final. Smith thought that his injury might only "get worse".

He added: "I guess we'll find out later on tonight, but we wish him all the best. He looked in a bit of distress. It's only probably going to get worse as well. We just hope that it's not too serious."

Smith qualified for the pommel horse final with the second-best score and now looks set to battle it out for gold with teammate Max Whitlock and Scotland's Daniel Keatings on Thursday.