Following a strange elbow injury that delayed his travel to Australia's training camp in the United Arab Emirates prior to their Test series in Sri Lanka, Steve Smith said that he was "a little bit anxious." After injuring himself while throwing a ball from the deep, the 35-year-old, who was elected captain of the visiting team in Pat Cummins' absence, was in danger of missing the two Test matches at Galle. He spent the weekend in an elbow brace and undergoing tests. Now, beginning on January 29, he will gradually acclimate to the camp and make sure he is healthy enough to play in the first game.
Smith's ailment during his international ban in 2018–19 was strikingly comparable to this one. He had to have surgery back then to fix a torn ligament, but he triumphantly returned for the 2019 World Cup and the ensuing Ashes series. Smith's worst fears of requiring surgery have been dispelled, but he still has some muscular injury that will require careful management in the coming weeks, particularly when fielding.
"I caught Davey [Warner] over the boundary and flung it back into the field, then threw the ball back in quite hard," Smith recalled during the Big Bash game the other night. "I thought, 'Oh man, that hurt a little bit,' right away.
For a brief moment, I was concerned since itfelt a lot like the way I felt when I tore my ligament in 2019. However,examinations revealed that my mended ligament is thankfully still intact. Ihave some muscle injury, and the ligament on the bone is doing something with atiny millimeter of it. While I am rather comfortable batting, it is likelygoing to keep me from throwing for a while. I will have access to it and canexperiment with the tape."
In the UAE, Smith, who has 9999 Test runs, will follow a modified trainingregimen that started Tuesday with some running laps and elbow treatment. Hewill not do anything ambitious in the beginning, but it is anticipated that hewill shortly resume batting. Smith remarked, "Compared to a few days ago,it is feeling a lot better."
"I am essentially prepared to bat now that I have all of my movement andhyper-extension back, which is wonderful. It will start out light, and I willnot be doing a lot of expansive play on my first session back. In order toprevent myself from going into proper hyperextension, as I did throughout 2019when I returned to the IPL and the World Cup, I will most likely be battingwith some tape on it.
"I had tape on it at the time to prevent me from reaching the extremes of[hyperextension]." I got through that okay, and I am fairly sure thingswill work out."
YOU ARE READING
Lee lights up WBBL again with second consecutive century
Short StoryLizelle Lee became the first player to score hundreds in back-to-back WBBL games after supporting a record century with another century. A struggling Adelaide Strikers team was defeated by 28 runs thanks to the Hobart Hurricanes opener, who scored 1...
