Western Australia to give Lance Morris rare back-to-back games as they look to make another Sheffield Shield Final.
Western Australia press for another final as Lance Morris set for rare back-to-back Shield games.
Amid a difficult balancing act with his bowling load management, Lance Morris is expected to be unleashed against New South Wales as WA attempts to earn a spot in the Sheffield Shield final for the fourth consecutive year.
Nathan Lyon, a Test offspinner, will not be playing for NSW again this season as he continues to recuperate from a hip injury he treated during the Sri Lankan trip. Usman Khawaja has also been picked for Queensland, and Matthew Kuhnemann, Lyon’s spin partner in Sri Lanka, will return for Tasmania after being approved to throw following ICC testing.
Morris and Cameron Bancroft, who will play his 100th Shield match against NSW at the WACA field after recovering from a broken shoulder sustained in the BBL, have been named in WA’s 14-man squad.
Given that Morris is under contract with Cricket Australia and that they have been controlling his playing schedule this summer, his participation is the most notable. After suffering a stress fracture last winter and a quad strain late in the preseason, Morris, who turns 27 this month, has only participated in three Shield games this season, including WA’s most recent victory over Queensland in Brisbane. He has been playing with a maximum overs restriction of 25 per game.
According to reports, he was originally scheduled to be rested from the match against NSW in order to be available for WA’s final home and away game against Victoria at the WACA field the following week. Given that Morris is a rising international prospect and one of the few bowlers in Australia who can regularly reach speeds of over 150 kph, CA’s medical staff is understandably very cautious about him playing back-to-back Shield games at the moment due to his extensive injury history. As a result, such a schedule could have prevented him from making it to the final.
Morris’ situation is a perfect illustration of why CA chose Adam Griffith to be the new national pace bowling coach in order to standardise the way fast bowlers are managed at the national, state, and franchise levels of cricket. While a new team physio will be hired to travel full-time with the squad, CA has also assigned Nick Jones, the current travelling physio for the Australia men’s team, to a permanent case manager position located in Australia to plan and supervise the recovery of injured players.
Jones will also be managing Cameron Green, who is still recovering from back surgery, but it is doubtful that he will play in the Shield before Gloucestershire’s County Championship run.