Shane Watson, is he unlucky or what?

[pup11]

I mean can any cricketer be more unlucky than Watto, he has been around Australian cricket for ages now but whenever his career starts to take some shape he always gets injured.


I really feel for the bloke, i hope his latest injury is just a minor strain. It would be really disappointing for both Watto and the Aussies if his injury is serious enough to rule him out of the WC.


P.S: Any updates on his injury?

 

[Perm]

Was expecting Fiery to come in here and say "harden up" or something of a similar nature, then I remembered about his ban.

Anyway Watson is very unlucky and I can't help thinking that he may be a little bit mentally soft, he looks in pretty good shape physical and you can tell by looking at him that he is strong and pretty fit but he always seems to pick up these minor little injuries. Can't quite put my finger on what it is.

 

[pup11]

If Watto gets ruled out then what are the options.

Its something thats worth considering, if Watto doesn't play any further part in this WC then Hodgey would probably come into the side but that would hurt the Australian team's balance IMO.


Symo's bowling atm is nowhere near its best and due to that the 5th bowling option could be problem for the Aussies, Watto might not have set the world on fire in this WC but he has been effective in his role with both bat (even at no.7) and ball.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Whether or not he is "mentally soft", that really doesn't have any bearing on why he keeps getting injuries. There's not even a common theme, given that he's missed long periods of cricket due to stress fractures, but recently it's been a dislocated shoulder and then a series of muscle problems.

Anyway, he's obviously been pretty unlucky. If this ends his WC, there's not much he can do except spend the rest of the year preparing for the tests this summer, where he'll probably feature regularly if fit.

I imagine he'll be replaced with Hodge, and Symonds and Clarke will have to bowl 10 overs per game. Weakens our attack a fair bit, but there's not much that can be done short of calling up someone like Hopes or White, which would probably be worse.

Mind you, White will probably be called into the squad as cover anyway.

 

[pasag]

You see this in footy, not so much in cricket where some people are just so bloody unlucky when it comes to injuries.

 

[shortpitched713]

Anyway Watson is very unlucky and I can't help thinking that he may be a little bit mentally soft, he looks in pretty good shape physical and you can tell by looking at him that he is strong and pretty fit but he always seems to pick up these minor little injuries. Can't quite put my finger on what it is.

Shane Bond Syndrome. A shame really, was such a good young cricketer.

 

[Perm]

Still, if he is mentally soft then a minor calf strain would be something that rules him out of a game or two. If he was mentally tougher and able to "suck it up" then he would probably just play through a minor injury like this. I don't really know what he is like so I can't comment on whether he is mentally soft, but minor injuries like this are a poor excuse to miss games in my opinion. If it is a minor calf strain, as first reported then I would have so much more respect if he just played through it.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

You see this in footy, not so much in cricket where some people are just so bloody unlucky when it comes to injuries.

I think a lot of injury prone players get over it somewhat as they get older. Probably has something to do with just getting used to playing heaps of cricket all the time and the other things that come with it. Guys like Gillespie and Lee for instance got injured all the time when they were younger but don't really have too many problems these days, at least no more than other bowlers.

Then you've got guys like Bond who just keep it up.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Still, if he is mentally soft then a minor calf strain would be something that rules him out of a game or two. If he was mentally tougher and able to "suck it up" then he would probably just play through a minor injury like this. I don't really know what he is like so I can't comment on whether he is mentally soft, but minor injuries like this are a poor excuse to miss games in my opinion. If it is a minor calf strain, as first reported then I would have so much more respect if he just played through it.

He might be able to bat with a minor calf strain, but obviously he couldn't bowl with it, that'd just be stupid. Players play through injuries all the time, but there's a big difference between an injury that simply causes you discomfort and one that makes it impossible for you to play at anywhere near full capacity.

 

[Perm]

A minor calf strain is exactly that, a minor injury. Without having experienced this specific kind of injury myself I can't comment fully on how much discomfort it would cause, however I have had problems with my calf last year and the physio said it was a "tweak" of my calf muscle and said that rubbing an ointment (deep heat) into it should heal the little strain and I would be good to play rugby in a couple of days.

Besides, it's not as if Watson is sprinting into bowl. A quick jog is really all that a bowling run-up is and the effort goes into the delivery stride. I really can't see a minor strain affecting his bowling too much, sure his calf might be slightly tight but I severly doubt whether it would limit him too much.

 

[Johnners]

A tight calf strain would have a considerable effect on his bowling imo. The tightness would hamper his run up, and if you saw Stephen Harmison in the 02/03 Ashes series, you saw what happened to a bowler who was having troubles with his run-up.

Also, there's always the chance of further damaging the calf if he over exerted himself, or even if he caught his spikes or something whilst fielding.

 

[pup11]

Look with Watto's history of injuries even a minor calf-strain would really scare him, if he just sucks it up and keeps on playing what if its turns into some major injury.


Watto has got such a good bowling action and physically he is so fit (atleast he looks fit) so just can't understand why he keeps on getting injured probably his body just ain't meant for fast-bowling.

 

[Blaze]

You see this in footy, not so much in cricket where some people are just so bloody unlucky when it comes to injuries.

completely disagree.

You obviously just don't see it as Australia are generally ridiculously lucky with injuries.

Mills, Oram, Styris, Bond, Vettori, Astle, Tuffey, Cairns, Allot, Nash, Doull, Butler etc have all been injury prone for NZ over the last 10 years...

There are probably 4-5 more that I can't think of. Of Course Crowe had 5 years cut off the end of his career due to injury

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Yeah, but you see more of it in footy. Especially AFL.

 

[Matt79]

Hodge might play in the next match, but I agree, without Watson's 6-8 overs a match, the team is unbalanced. Based on what the team brains-trust would have seen so far during this WC, I don't think they'll be wanting to rely on Symonds and Hodge for 10 overs. White's bowling wouldn't be filling them with enthusiasm either - he'd go for 10+ an over routinely on these grounds, and even though he'd also hit plenty of sixes on these teeny grounds, that might give them enough pause to consider replacing Watto with someone like Hopes or even Thornely. Hell, after the Pura Cup final, they might send for Buttersworth...

 

[Johnners]

or Butterworth ?

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

The key issue with White IMO is simply that Hodge is a better batsman, and White's not going to be bowling many overs given the way he struggled in the CB series. He'd probably be a better bowling option than someone like Hodge if there's some turn around, but he's not likely to bowl any more overs, so Hodge gets the nod.

Will be interesting to see where Hodge bats though. They had him at 5 before, but that's Symonds' spot, and there's been some talk about giving Hussey more game time, so it seems unlikely they'd push him back down to 7. That'd mean Hodge has to bat 7, which might not be ideal for him.

 

[Matt79]

So its Buttersworth. Or Butterworth. Either way.

 

[The_Bunny]

So its Buttersworth. Or Butterworth. Either way.

He needs to get into the team and back up the promise he shows, allthough lets hope he doesnt become a test specialist.....

Imagine 3 allounders then we would be truly unbeatable

 

[Perm]

Or you would become the laughing stock for employing bit part players.