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Daniel Brettig
December 2, 2011
Ryan Harris, Australia's preferred pace spearhead, has almost certainly played his last Test match for 2011, and will not return until he can get his injury-afflicted body fit enough to guarantee five days of strong bowling.
One of the most problematic men among the quintet of players omitted from the Brisbane Tests, Harris, 32, is Australia's best bowler when fit, but seemingly less likely to remain so with each match he plays. Pat Howard, the team performance manager, has decreed Harris must be brought to a point at which he is capable of performing for five days before he can resume with the team.
At present, Howard indicated, two or three days of bowling and fielding is about the best Harris can manage. Currently convalescing after a hip/pelvis complaint, Harris is understood to have been placed on a longer-term fitness program over the next month, and is unlikely to be considered for the Hobart Test or the Boxing Day match against India. He is scheduled to return to bowling in Brisbane on Monday, but will not be rushed back.
"The medical team are working particularly hard with a mandate to try to get him back to produce a really good five-day outcome," Howard told ESPNcricinfo. "We know we could rush him back quickly and get him bowling for two or three days and that doesn't really help him in the long-term or Australian cricket, so we're really looking at how do we get Ryan back to play at his best for five days. We all know if we can get him back to that stage, then we've got a fantastic asset playing for Australia."
Harris bowled some outstanding spells to help Australia win a Test series in Sri Lanka, and was also among the wickets in the first Test against South Africa in Cape Town. However a hamstring strain kept him out of the third Test of the Sri Lanka series, and he missed the second in South Africa with a hip ailment. He is also managing a degenerative right knee.
This combination of trouble spots means that Harris' fitness can be a day-to-day proposition, and Howard is adamant the Test team led by Michael Clarke should not be second-guessing the fitness of any of its XI. To that end, Howard has suggested that last-minute or even match eve fitness tests may be consigned to the dustbin of history.
The early decision to rule out five players from the Brisbane Test squad was a choice made out of consideration for the demands of the summer ahead, but also to ensure that fitness tests and the flying in of shadow players did not disrupt the assembly and preparation of the firs Test team.
"What we're trying not to do is wait until the last day to make a decision on an injured player," Howard said. "We didn't wait until 6pm the night before the Test to say Pat Cummins can't play. We've said put in all the physio we can, be very active with that and medical services to get him back to 100%, rather than try to put him out at 80%, and we made that decision with a few of the players looking at we've got six Test matches here."
Cummins joined the Australia squad in Brisbane on day two of the first Test against New Zealand, as part of the team's desire to more closely monitor the fitness and wellbeing of its cricketers. Howard said the team's medical and fitness staff were being given a greater opportunity to work with the likes of Cummins and Shaun Marsh, also allowing the captain Michael Clarke to see and know precisely how his injured players are going.
"Shaun Marsh has been with the team all week, Pat Cummins is coming up to visit, Ryan Harris has been in, Shane Watson's been in, Mitchell Johnson flew back over [for surgery]," Howard said. "We do want to closely deal with that because that helps the selectors have a deeper squad, that helps the captain understand where his team is going for the next couple of Tests, the strength and conditioning guys monitor that re-entry into games. There is a closer co-ordination of that."
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