Perth, Nov 4 (IANS) There were days during his long road back to playing cricket again when Lance Morris would turn up to training, run in to bowl and feel nothing like the tearaway who once had Australian cricket talking.
Now, with Australia preparing to host England in the ODI series, Morris has admitted that the injury lay-off took a mental toll on him and that, more than 18 months after his last top-level game, he is finally ready to play again.
Morris, 28, missed the entire 2025/26 season after pars stabilisation surgery for a recurring lumbar bone-stress injury, the same operation Cameron Green had gone through earlier. Going under the knife, he said, was the only real alternative to a year of doing nothing at all.
“I got to a point where essentially I had to have 12 months off cricket. It was either 12 months of pure rest and hoping that it heals naturally or address it with this surgical intervention and hopefully put it behind me for good. It was certainly tough at times.
“More recently, there were a few sessions there where I’d rock up to training and feel pretty average when I was bowling. (I) was (feeling) pretty down in the dumps. I feel really good at the moment, and I think I’ve pushed through a bit of a threshold and got back to that game intensity that we were looking for,” Morris was quoted as saying by Cricinfo on Wednesday.
Even the comeback did not run smoothly. After regaining fitness over the off-season, Morris was primed to play at the start of the domestic summer. But a side strain sidelined him for almost two more months.
The time on the sidelines cost him more than matches. The management of his back problem became a source of friction between Morris, Cricket Australia and WA, and earlier this year he lost the CA contract he had held since 2023.
Last Sunday, Morris finally bowled in a match again, taking 2-14 in four overs for Scarborough in a Western Australia Premier Cricket T20 game. “I’m really excited. I think it’s been the longest pre-season I’ve ever had, so I’m feeling really fit. It was good to get a game in for the local cricket club over the weekend and let a few go, so it was awesome,” he said.
A tougher test comes on Saturday, when WA host England in a one-day warm-up at the WACA to open the visitors’ white-ball tour of Australia. In his absence, others have caught the selectors’ eye.
Jhye Richardson has made a blistering start to the Sheffield Shield season after overcoming his injury woes. Mahli Beardman, 21, has earned a place in Australia’s white-ball squads for the England series.
The timing could still work in Morris’s favour. Australia’s frontline attack is ageing and having spent so long on the sidelines, Morris is in no hurry.
“I think it’s easy to sort of cast your eyes that far ahead and have goals to play for Australia. But I think, at the moment, it’s just one step in front of the other and getting through a couple of games unscathed. Then see where we get to.”
Morris signed off by being full of praise for Beardman, who made his international debut in a T20I in Pakistan earlier this year. “He’s obviously got a great reputation already, and he deserves it. He’s a star in the making, and I think he’s got all the attributes to not only be an incredible white-ball cricketer, but also multi-format.
“It’s exciting to come up against an amazing team in England; you just look at the star power that they bring over with them. It’s a big game; fingers crossed we can give them a bit of a shake.”
–IANS
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