Australia facing their biggest injury dilemma ahead of the ICC World Cup 2011
The defending champions http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 have many injury concerns to deal with as they embark upon the mission to annex the World Cup trophy for the fourth time in a row.
Led by an injured Ricky Ponting, the Aussies would be playing their games in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 in the group stage with an aim of cruising through to the knock out stage of the tournament. However, their preparations have taken a serious beating
lately through a spate of injuries to some of the leading members of the team. This situation has greatly worried the coach of the team Tim Nielsen, who believes that the squad needs to be free of all injury concerns as they bid to extend their reign on the
biggest prize in the ODI format.
"I can't afford to have two, three or four guys that we're uncertain about," Nielsen said. "It means we've only got 11 fit ready to go at the start. That's the quandary we face. What is the role the players who are injured play? Do
we have back-up for that position? All those things will be thrown into the mix."
On the other hand the positive news for Nielsen is the recovery made by his captain Ponting, who sat out the last Ashes test as well as the entire ODI series against England after fracturing his finger while attempting to catch an
England batsman in the third test of the summer at the WACA in Perth.
He played the Boxing Day test and only aggravated his injury in the crushing innings defeat which gave the Ashes urn to Andrew Strauss’s men.
Throughout the painfully long ODI series, either camp kept treating one injured man after another as the long summer had its toil on the players. There were some who were extremely unlucky too, Nathan Hauritz got injured after falling
heavily on his shoulder in his only international appearance of the summer two days after he had won a berth in the World Cup team.
At the f*g end of the series, the other spin bowler in the team Steve Smith also got himself injured after Mike Hussey, Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson fell for varying degrees of injuries in the series.
Besides the injuries to the bowlers, the Aussies are facing the prospect of starting the tournament without one of their most reliable batsmen, Mike Hussey, who underwent surgery after injuring his hamstring in the first match of
the series that took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
If he fails to make it to the squad, the Aussies are going to be severely hit as Mr. Cricket remains pivotal to their chances in the tricky playing conditions that the Australians are set to encounter in the sub-continent.
"Their injuries couldn't have come at a worse time for us, looking forward to the World Cup. They're both very senior members of our side. We've got our fingers crossed for both those guys and I know the physios and doctors have been
doing a lot of talking today about those two. Hopefully they come up." said the Australian captain, Ponting.
With the tournament set to start in 12 days time, the Aussies have to decide quickly if they are going to take any replacements with them.
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