Australian batsman Travis Head made his return to the nets for the first time after he suffered a fractured hand in South Africa and is expected to be able to fly out to join the World Cup squad in India on Thursday.
The 29-year-old had the cast removed late last week and is now facing throwdowns. Scans have shown the fracture, inflicted by fast bowler Gerald Coetzee at Centurion, is healing well, although he still needs a final sign-off before joining the Australian squad.
The earliest possible return for Head would appear to be against the Netherlands on October 25, although that may still depend on his condition.
“It’s coming along well, and probably better than we hoped. When we decided not to go with surgery, which would have meant a ten-week recovery, we were told it would be a minimum of six weeks with the splint before we could look at playing again,” Travis Head said.
“Going by that plan, the Netherlands game will be just under six weeks from impact, which is a pretty aggressive date, so everything would have to go perfectly from here to make that deadline,” he added.
“But we’ll just see how it progresses over the next few days, and I’m excited by the prospect of joining the boys over there later in the week,” he added.
The 29-year-old’s importance to the Australian squad was emphasised since the selectors opted to only have 14 available players for the first part of the ODI World Cup 2023. The Aussie team selectors also had to replace Ashton Agar with Marnus Labuschagne to help cover for Head’s absence in the team.
