Test paceman James Pattinson is set to have spinal surgery in a bid to save his career after Cricket Australia’s medical staff revealed yesterday his latest injury was his eighth stress fracture, the past four of which have been in the same spot.
Screws and wires would be used to bind Pattinson’s troublesome vertebrae, which would also be supplemented with bone grafted from his hip.
The surgery would be done by the New Zealand specialists who rebuilt Kiwi quick Shane Bond, and CA is optimistic it would enable Pattinson to again play Test cricket.
“He’s got four old stress fractures that haven’t healed since his teenage years,” CA’s sports science manager Alex Kountouris said in Sydney yesterday.
“What he’s doing is getting bone stress on the healthy part of the bone. And that one part of the bone keeps breaking.
"It’s broken four times in the same spot because he’s got these other weaknesses that have been there since he was 16 or 17.
“People have one, sometimes they have two, (but) it’s unusual to have four.”
Pattinson was ruled out of the Bangladesh tour in August/September after suffering back soreness playing for Nottinghamshire in the off-season.
The pain continued and last month CA announced he was out of the Ashes.
“We do routine scans,” Kountouris said. “And we picked something up. We just watched it for a month and it got worse.
“We got him to bowl a few times and he said he was having the same back pain that he was having before. We scanned him and it was quite clear where this was heading.”
Kountouris said the CA medical staff were yet to sign off on the surgery but said, “we’re a long way down the track of looking at it”.
“It doesn’t sound like there’s a lot to lose. There’s obviously some complications that could possibly happen, there’s concerns with any sort of surgery, but that’s probably the way we’re going to go.”
Pattinson’s frustrations boiled over against the West Indies two summers ago when after a wicketless first innings in Hobart he abandoned the action CA had designed to try to end his injury run.
He promptly demolished the Windies’ second innings — equalling his Test best of 5-27 — and after play said bowling with his old action was preferable to being wicketless and dropped.
Later he back-pedalled somewhat, saying the second innings action was perhaps a hybrid but the frustration was genuine.
Kountouris said Pattinson was effectively too fast for his own good. “It just puts a lot of stress on one part of the bone,” he said. “If he was bowling at 125km/h he wouldn’t have a problem.
“The problem is he’s a very good fast bowler, and he bowls 145-plus km/h … to bowl that fast he needs to wind himself up.
“And that rotation, while it’s bad for stress fractures, it’s good for bowling fast.”
Pattinson has played only 17 Tests since declaring his fast bowling genius with 5-27 on debut against New Zealand at the Gabba in 2011.
The amount of cricket he’s missed can be measured by a check of his fellow debutants that game, David Warner (66 Tests) and Mitchell Starc (36 Tests).
At his best Pattinson is considered by many to be the pick of the Australian big four — rounded out, of course, by Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins — so his absence from the Ashes is a body blow for Australia.
But CA’s medical staff are confident the surgery will succeed and use the example of Mitchell Johnson, who played well into his 30s after missing much of his 20s with injury, to support the optimism.
“If you can look after them and get good bone healing, you can still have a great career,” national men’s physio David Beakley said yesterday.
“James has been really positive. What is he, 27 now? And he’s still got a lot of cricket left in him.
“He’s keen to get this right and still have a pretty long career.”
Team doctor Richard Saw said the New Zealand surgeons would probably bind the troublesome vertebra with wire and support it with screws and the bone graft, “like a cast on your foot”.
“Some of those (New Zealand) surgeons are a bit more experienced with fast bowlers and have got them back to playing at the elite level and bowling quickly,” he said.
CA’s annual injury report released yesterday showed the time it takes a player to recover was slightly up last season, partly because of a small increase in fast bowler injuries.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...r/news-story/eaab8142a0b96eaf47c0d15265ffb1d6
Screws and wires would be used to bind Pattinson’s troublesome vertebrae, which would also be supplemented with bone grafted from his hip.
The surgery would be done by the New Zealand specialists who rebuilt Kiwi quick Shane Bond, and CA is optimistic it would enable Pattinson to again play Test cricket.
“He’s got four old stress fractures that haven’t healed since his teenage years,” CA’s sports science manager Alex Kountouris said in Sydney yesterday.
“What he’s doing is getting bone stress on the healthy part of the bone. And that one part of the bone keeps breaking.
"It’s broken four times in the same spot because he’s got these other weaknesses that have been there since he was 16 or 17.
“People have one, sometimes they have two, (but) it’s unusual to have four.”
Pattinson was ruled out of the Bangladesh tour in August/September after suffering back soreness playing for Nottinghamshire in the off-season.
The pain continued and last month CA announced he was out of the Ashes.
“We do routine scans,” Kountouris said. “And we picked something up. We just watched it for a month and it got worse.
“We got him to bowl a few times and he said he was having the same back pain that he was having before. We scanned him and it was quite clear where this was heading.”
Kountouris said the CA medical staff were yet to sign off on the surgery but said, “we’re a long way down the track of looking at it”.
“It doesn’t sound like there’s a lot to lose. There’s obviously some complications that could possibly happen, there’s concerns with any sort of surgery, but that’s probably the way we’re going to go.”
Pattinson’s frustrations boiled over against the West Indies two summers ago when after a wicketless first innings in Hobart he abandoned the action CA had designed to try to end his injury run.
He promptly demolished the Windies’ second innings — equalling his Test best of 5-27 — and after play said bowling with his old action was preferable to being wicketless and dropped.
Later he back-pedalled somewhat, saying the second innings action was perhaps a hybrid but the frustration was genuine.
Kountouris said Pattinson was effectively too fast for his own good. “It just puts a lot of stress on one part of the bone,” he said. “If he was bowling at 125km/h he wouldn’t have a problem.
“The problem is he’s a very good fast bowler, and he bowls 145-plus km/h … to bowl that fast he needs to wind himself up.
“And that rotation, while it’s bad for stress fractures, it’s good for bowling fast.”
Pattinson has played only 17 Tests since declaring his fast bowling genius with 5-27 on debut against New Zealand at the Gabba in 2011.
The amount of cricket he’s missed can be measured by a check of his fellow debutants that game, David Warner (66 Tests) and Mitchell Starc (36 Tests).
At his best Pattinson is considered by many to be the pick of the Australian big four — rounded out, of course, by Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins — so his absence from the Ashes is a body blow for Australia.
But CA’s medical staff are confident the surgery will succeed and use the example of Mitchell Johnson, who played well into his 30s after missing much of his 20s with injury, to support the optimism.
“If you can look after them and get good bone healing, you can still have a great career,” national men’s physio David Beakley said yesterday.
“James has been really positive. What is he, 27 now? And he’s still got a lot of cricket left in him.
“He’s keen to get this right and still have a pretty long career.”
Team doctor Richard Saw said the New Zealand surgeons would probably bind the troublesome vertebra with wire and support it with screws and the bone graft, “like a cast on your foot”.
“Some of those (New Zealand) surgeons are a bit more experienced with fast bowlers and have got them back to playing at the elite level and bowling quickly,” he said.
CA’s annual injury report released yesterday showed the time it takes a player to recover was slightly up last season, partly because of a small increase in fast bowler injuries.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...r/news-story/eaab8142a0b96eaf47c0d15265ffb1d6
