Confirmed: Green to have surgery
Cameron Green ruled out for six months
Cricket Australia confirmed on Monday morning what Cricket Et Al subscribers were told last week: Cameron Green will have surgery and will not play this summer.
It’s a blow for the 25-year-old all-rounder who moved to Steve Smith’s No.4 batting position last summer and was set to really establish himself in the Test side.
The injury occurred during the pointless, recent ODI series against England and there is an angry rump in the west who think he should not have been bowling and has not been managed properly. Such things happen when cricketers break. It’s a traumatic and frustrating time for all and the tensions between state and national bodies can amplify.
Cricket Australia will vigorously counter this narrative. All bowlers undergo six month routine scans and he was cleared to play a few months back. Injuries are always controversial. There was enormous upset around Shane Watson’s hamstring tear in the 2014 Boxing Day Test, but that’s a story for another time.
Here is the official release from CA which came at 11am Monday.
Australian allrounder Cameron Green will undergo surgery to address a stress fracture of the lumbar spine this week.
The extent of the fracture was revealed in follow up scans and extensive assessment after he reported lower back pain on the recent tour of the UK.
Whilst spine stress fractures are not unusual in pace bowlers, Cam has a unique defect in an adjacent area to the fracture that is believed to be contributing to the injury.
After thorough consultation it was determined Cameron would benefit from the surgery to stabilise the defect and reduce the risk of future recurrence.
The surgery has been performed successfully with elite pace bowlers in the past.
Recovery time is anticipated to be around six-months. The decision to proceed to surgery is with Cameron’s long-term future as an all-rounder in mind.
ENDS
There have been a number of meetings between Green’s camp, the medical staff and selectors about the situation across the last fortnight as options were assessed and the significance of the injury revealed itself.
The push was for him to have surgery in New Zealand. Apparently it involves screws close to the wound and wiring.
James Pattinson explained put it in to words even a fast bowler could understand after having a similar operation in 2017.
"The reason we went over there was because they use a good technique where they don't actually touch the fracture with any pins or anything like that," Pattinson told SEN's The Run Home around that time.
"They put the pins there as an anchor and anchor a wire around that area to basically clamp it shut so there's no movement in there and stops the stress going in that area.
"The surgery wasn't as big and bad as it was made out to be."
Green must be feeling pretty shattered about all of this, but he is young and there’s plenty of time for him to build on his 28 Test career.
Or not. Life takes strange twists and he must be anxious about what lies ahead.
We have been busy complicating the situation in terms of the effects on selection, but Tim Paine simplified it on the pod last week when he suggested Australia not worry about finding somebody to replace Green’s overs in the first few Tests and only then reasess the fitness of the bowlers and the need to top up or change.
Steve Smith hasn’t confirmed that he doesn’t want to open but it seems to be a fact. So, the simple solution is to bring in another opener.
And so the speculation starts.
Cameron Bancroft and Matthew Renshaw didn’t get out of the blocks in the first Sheffield Shield round. Marcus Harris did with a good knock on the batting paradise at Junction Oval.
There were 10 centuries scored in the first round of the Shield which was played in relatively benign conditions and in which no result was possible from any of the three matches.
Two of the centuries belong to NSW’s wunderkind opener, Sam Konstas, who has had most observer’s salivating with excitement. Victorian noses seem a little out of joint, claiming all Blues players get a baggy green with the Blue and blaming the Sydney media “mafia”.
I love this stuff. Never change.
Isn’t it great that the summer is rolling around?
Sam Konstas is a terrific talent with a bright future, but unfortunately his twin centuries told us nothing we didn't already know. Cricket Australia's insistence on removing all the best bowlers from the Shield means that runs scored there are impossible to value accurately. Certainly, runs against South Australia on a dead track in October say nothing about how a player might shape up to Jasprit Bumrah in Perth.
I remember Rick McCosker forcing his way into the Australian side with a string of hundreds in 1974-75. Here are the bowlers he faced in the Shield: Queensland had Jeff Thomson, Tony Dell and Geoff Dymock. WA had Dennis Lillee and Terry Alderman. Victoria had Alan Hurst, Max Walker, Jim Higgs and Ray Bright. The selectors rightly realised that a man who could score runs against them (not that he made many against Thomson) might get a few against Geoff Arnold and Mike Hendrick.
Konstas scoring runs against Jordan Buckingham tells you only that he might get a few against Jack Nisbet.
I know, I know, bowlers have to rest so that they'll be fit for the IPL. But this is not how you produce Test match batsmen. It's now possible never to face a Test match bowler until you actually play in a Test match.
This Konstas guy can't win, he scores two centuries (one a 150) and he gets brickbats from some for doing it. What's he supposed to do, get out on 65 and 89 or something? Throw his wicket away? Retire out? He can only play what's in front of him, if the attack isn't test standard it's not his fault. Other more seasoned players didn't score that many against the same attack. Lucky he didn't score a 200 or a 300. Presumably he will play in Melbourne against Victoria in a week, with any luck he'll get more runs. Maybe it's best he doesn't ... or there'll be more friction.