The Australian speedster James Pattinson has been ruled out of the upcoming Ashes series after the reappearance of his lower back stress fracture.
Pattinson will go on an indefinite break from bowling as he recovers from the lower back stress fracture, the statement issued by Cricket Australia confirmed. The 27-year-old fast bowler has been injury prone ever since he broke into the international circuit in 2011.
While talking to media, a disappointed Pattinson said, “Obviously I am extremely disappointed with this setback after just getting back into a good run of playing cricket,” Pattinson said. “I”m especially disappointed to miss out on the possibility to play in a home Ashes series. Over the next few weeks, I will discuss all available options available to me with medical staff, to work out the best plan to prevent this from happening again.”
Pattinson had a great start for his county side bowling with great pace and accuracy but soon had come back citing a back injury. Pattinson hasn’t featured in any form of cricket since July 1 thus missing the recently concluded Bangladesh series.
“We made the decision to withdraw him from the tour of Bangladesh and monitor his pain. He returned to bowling after a period of rest and unfortunately he is still experiencing pain with bowling. During this time we have been monitoring him, including regular scans and recent imaging has confirmed that James has begun to re-aggravate his previous lower back stress fracture,” Alex Kountouris, CA”s sports science manager said.
Kountouris, confirming the news of Pattinson being ruled out of Ashes said, “”Whilst this is very disappointing that James has re-aggravated this old injury, we are confident that he can recover from this and return to playing,” he said. “However, James” current injury is complex because his history of old stress fractures from his teenage years means there is one part of his spine that absorbs more force than it would normally do.
“This is the area of current re-aggravation but we are hopeful that we can put strategies in place to help manage this when James returns to playing,” he further added.
Pattinson hasn’t represented Australia in a test match since February 2016. Australia will now rely hugely on Mitchell Stark and Patt Cummins when they take on England later this year.
