Yorkshire all-rounder Tim Bresnan is confident of recovering fully from the injury that sidelined him for the later part of the English summer to play a full part in this winter’s Ashes series.
The 28-year-old suffered a stress fracture to his back immediately after helping England win the fourth Ashes Test at Emirates Durham and put on a recovery and rehabilitation programme that ruled him out of the final Test at the Oval and the one-day and Twenty20 international series against Australia that followed.
His injury was regarded as serious enough for Bresnan to be overlooked for England’s 17-man Ashes squad, but he will fly out with them to Australia on October 23 to allow his fitness to be monitored and he is bullish about his chances of taking a part in the series.
“It’s going really well,” he said. “I’ve not felt it, fingers crossed, since three days after I did it. It didn’t ever feel like a stress fracture to me, but obviously the scans showed it up and you have to roll with it, do the rehab to the letter. I can pretty much do anything I want in the gym and hope to back running in the next week or so.
“After we fly out to Australia I’ll be looking to just build it up back to bowling from there. If all goes well in the first couple of sessions, I’ll have a little run through and see how it feels and we’ll just try and progress it as if you would going on any tour.”
Asked if playing in the Test series, which begins at the Gabba on November 21, is a realistic possibility, Bresnan insisted: “Definitely. I wouldn’t be travelling if that wasn’t the case. Fingers crossed, depending how the warm-up games go, I hope to available for selection almost straight away.”
Should Bresnan recover, he would certainly be considered for selection having played such a vital part in securing victory at Durham, scoring 45 as nightwatchman in the second innings before claiming the key wicket of David Warner to set England on course for their 229-runs triumph.
That he missed the final Test and the one-day section of Australia’s tour remains a source of great irritation for him, particularly as it came just a few months after he had battled back from a second operation on his right elbow which forced him to miss England’s tour of New Zealand.
“It was frustrating because I missed out on a Test match and I didn’t actually feel injured at all,” he admitted. “It was massively frustrating but you can’t just keep going with one of these because it can get worse and instead of just missing two months you end up missing six months or potentially a year if it’s that bad. It was the right call just to pull out of all cricket.
“If you remember back to the start of the year I was bowling quite a lot to try and prove my fitness after my elbow operation. You could add up all the overs and the nets and all that and think that’s possibly why but it’s impossible to say really. It could have been coming for two years, or over the last six months, the last few weeks or even in that last Test I played.”
Bresnan’s first challenge is to prove his fitness to Andy Flower, England’s Team Director, in the build-up to the first Test, which will determine whether he is added to the full tour party or joins the England Performance Programme Squad, who are shadowing the main tour party for a month in Australia.
James Buttler
As the editor of World Cricket Badger he is intent on building the website to give quality coverage of the domestic game around the world.
He is also the presenter of the Cricket Badger Radio Show on Radio Yorkshire every Tuesday evening between 7-9pm UK time.
James was the full-time Media Manager at Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 2007 and 2010.
James is a published author, a writer/video contributor to many cricket publications and a complete cricket badger!
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