WA tearaway\u2019s comeback weekend ruined by post-match accident to non-bowling hand<\/p>\n
The luckless cricketing journey of Lance Morris has taken another frustrating turn, with the Western Australia speedster cutting his left hand only hours after returning to domestic action on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Morris was outstanding in taking 3-29 in a one-dayer for WA against the touring England side at the WACA Ground at the weekend. It was his first professional match in 20 months following back surgery and a side strain that delayed his return to action, but on Saturday evening he suffered a cut to his left hand.<\/p>\n
“Lance will consult a hand specialist today to determine the extent of the injury and a timeline on his return to playing,” read a statement from the WACA.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old speedster\u2019s promising career has been regularly interrupted by injury \u2013 he has played just 26 first-class matches since his Sheffield Shield debut in October 2020 \u2013 and this latest setback comes after what he described as the “longest preseason” of his career.<\/p>\n
“Early doors, after surgery, it was pretty smooth sailing to start with,” Morris said last week. “Then as we were starting to return to play, things didn\u2019t quite go how we planned and it (became) a little bit turbulent at times.<\/p>\n
“More recently, I guess there were a few sessions there where I\u2019d rock up to training and feel pretty average when I was bowling, and pretty down in the dumps.<\/p>\n
“(The) side strain, which was another eight weeks on top of what had already been a really long rehab, that was tough to get through.<\/p>\n
“But I\u2019ve been really grateful for the medical staff at WA Cricket and all the guys getting around me and helping me through the rehab process.<\/p>\n
“I feel really good at the moment, and I think I\u2019ve sort of pushed through a bit of a threshold and got back to that game intensity that we were looking for.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s been the longest preseason I\u2019ve ever had. I\u2019m feeling really fit and firing to attack what\u2019s hopefully a pretty big season.”<\/p>\n
Morris did exactly that on Saturday, steaming in for 10 overs in WA\u2019s defeat to England in what the visitors\u2019 head coach Brendon McCullum described as a “very impressive” showing.<\/p>\n
“Especially for someone who has been off the scene for a while \u2013 to come back and to be able to locate the zone that he was wanting in terms of his length and then utilise his bounce the way he did,” McCullum said.<\/p>\n
“He bowled good pace and obviously got the rewards. He bowled a beautiful 10 overs.”<\/p>\n
WA head coach Beau Casson had forecast a potential return to Shield cricket for the three-time ODI rep ahead of the Big Bash break in December, though he tempered that by adding “we\u2019re not going to take reckless risks”.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re going to make sure that he\u2019s 100 per cent healthy to be able to do that,” Casson said. “He\u2019s had a torrid run of injuries. I\u2019m really proud of him. It\u2019s been a long process to get him to where he is right now.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re going to be patient, but we\u2019ve been very specific and deliberate in the plans.”<\/p>\n
Morris will now await news from the hand specialist before beginning to map out his next comeback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WA tearaway\u2019s comeback weekend ruined by post-match accident to non-bowling hand The luckless cricketing journey of Lance Morris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85,83],"class_list":["post-957808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}