Australia skipper Michael Clarke has been marred by injuries throughout the year and now a hamstring injury has ruled him out for the entire Test series against India, starting December 4.
Clarke, who has been in and out of the series mainly because of injuries, is now in a race against time to regain fitness for the fast-approaching World Cup. This is the third time in last 12 months that Clarke has suffered a hamstring breakdown.
Seeing the frequency of the injuries, the Australian team is now looking forward for an aggressive approach and a surgery is not out of equation. Cricket Australia manager Pat Howard said that they are considering every option to get Clarke fit for World Cup and Ashes.
“Everything is on the table at this point and we saw (fast bowler) Nathan Coulter-Nile go through hamstring surgery and come back in eight weeks,” said Howard. “Obviously that’s one possibility yes, but there are a lot of processes to actually go through.”
“We’ve gone down a conservative process a couple of times to keep him playing and he got through a couple of Tests in the UAE, but we’re not going to close any doors at this point,” he added.
“The priorities are (World Cup and Ashes) and sometimes you’ve got to take a little bit more medium-term or longer-term picture,” he concluded. “We’ve seen him rush back and what we’d hate is for him to play a Test or two and then break down. We’d like to do this right.”
Australia are to play four Test matches against India in Brisbane (December 4), Adelaide (December 12), Melbourne (December 26) and Sydney (January 3), followed by a tri-series, featuring England as the third Team.
