Finally some good news, with Australian captain Michael Clarke on track to play in the opening match of the Ashes tour next week against Somerset.
Clarke has had three training sessions with his team since spending a week and a half in London receiving specialist treatment on his troublesome back, which kept him out of the unsuccessful Champions Trophy title defence.
Provided there are no further setbacks, the skipper will now have more than a week to increase his workload in a bid to take the field in the four-day match in Taunton starting next Wednesday, June 26.
Although Australia won’t want to rush Clarke back too soon, if he is fit, they’ll be keen to give him match practice ahead of the five-Test series starting on July 10.
“Yeah I would imagine he would play,” said George Bailey, Australia’s stand-in skipper for the Champions Trophy.
Clarke was present but ruled out of Monday’s loss to Sri Lanka which sent Australia packing out of the limited overs tournament.
To progess to the semi-finals, Australia would have needed to romp to the 254-run victory target inside 30 overs.
Bailey said the element of the unknown as well as a rain-marred lead-in to the Sri Lankan game at The Oval contributed to medical staff opting on the side of caution with Clarke.
“I think if he’d been able to get outside and get a bit more training under his belt in the last couple of days and if we had been able to play this as a 50-over fixture, he would have been a really good chance to play this game,” Bailey said.
In Clarke’s third training session on Sunday, he faced bowlers in the nets in a sign that his rehabilitation is progressing.
National selector John Inverarity is confident Clarke will be fit for the Ashes.
“We’re very much looking forward to him returning to the Ashes and his leadership is very important to us,” Inverarity told the BBC.
“We need him at the helm. He’s a very good captain and the troops are very much behind him and we miss him when he’s not there.”