Injuries an unfortunate occupational hazard for fast bowlers: Oz team physiotherapist

Melbourne, Feb 9 : Australia team physiotherapist Alex Kountouris reckons the only way to reduce fast bowler injuries is by providing ample rest to players. 

As the debate continues over injuries to fast bowlers, Kountouris claimed it was an unfortunate occupational hazard.

“It's easy not to get injured. Don't train hard, don't play hard and rest all the time, but you don't get the results,” The Australian quoted Kountouris, as saying.

“We've been pretty successful over the last four or five years with lots of changes to the team and that's what's most important to us. If we lose players through injury, that's part and parcel of being a fast bowler, particularly over 30,” he added.

He claimed that with the hectic program, particularly last year, there was very little strength and conditioning work for the team.

“If you look at the Australian cricket team, we do almost nothing. Last year, if you played all forms of the game, you would get four weeks off for the whole year, so there's not really the time for strength and conditioning. What we try and do is recover and get up for the next game,” Kountouris said.

With injury keeping Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus out of the entire home summer season, Kountouris said their condition is being closely examined.

“We've spent the whole summer trying to find one reason. Is it too much bowling, not enough bowling, too much training, not enough training? It's not as simple as that. The program's been solid all year so there's a workload factor, but it's not the only factor. We get injuries every year. It's part and parcel of the job,” Kountouris said.

“I don't know if it would go down all that well resting players from Test matches. We try to rotate players in one-day cricket and with one-day tournaments. That's hard enough. We do it when we can. With the Australian cricket team it's certainly not the amount of running and strength work. We'd love to do more, but we just don't get the opportunity to do it,” he added.