LAHORE — The toe injury that has ruled Brydon Carse out of the remainder of the Champions Trophy should be seen as a warning shot to England’s medical team and management ahead of a huge year that ends with an away Ashes series.
Carse was selected for last Saturday’s opening match of the tournament against Australia in Lahore despite only having stitches to his big toe on his left foot removed in the days leading up to the game.
It’s an issue the 29-year-old has had to contend with for much of his career and has flared up particularly badly during a winter where he has become a regular across all formats for the first time.
In Pakistan last October, the series he made his Test debut in, Carse’s left foot was heavily bandaged throughout.
It was a tour where he bowled more overs (67) than any other seamer despite only playing two of the three Tests. These were in conditions that are particularly punishing for fast bowlers. He still took nine wickets.
The following series in New Zealand late last year was another he excelled in, taking 18 wickets at 17. But his workload, bowling 89.1 overs, was evident by the sight of his feet, with Carse’s mangled left toes visible to reporters interviewing him on the outfield at Wellington’s Basin Reserve after he’d helped England wrap up the series with a game to spare.
Despite the fact bowlers new to Test cricket often find the extra workload hard on their bodies, Carse was still selected for the third Test in Hamilton, a dead rubber England lost by 423 runs.
The newest star of the attack looked as though he could have done with a rest, too, as he returned two for 112, his worst match figures to date.
Despite a break over Christmas, the problem with Carse’s big toe on his landing foot flared up again on the white-ball tour of India. Having played four of the five T20 internationals and the first ODI, he was ruled out of the final two 50-over matches to seek treatment on his badly blistered left foot.
This is now the issue that has brought a premature end to his winter and asks serious questions of team management and the medical staff.
The decision to pass Carse fit for the Australia game would have been by consensus, with the team doctor, who on this tour is Anita Biswas, advising both coach Brendon McCullum and the player.
It is understandable that England wanted Carse to play in such a crucial game. Yet is a decision, made in good faith, that has ultimately backfired.
This is a year when England are desperate to have as many fast bowlers available as possible given the two titanic five-Test series they face at home to India and away to Australia.
Nobody can ensure players are fit all the time, especially fast bowlers. But England can play the percentages to give themselves the best chance possible of taking Carse, Mark Wood and Jofra Archer on that Ashes tour Down Under.
This injury felt avoidable.
It is a worry that at the start of the tour of India, McCullum, newly installed as England’s all-format coach after taking over white-ball duties as well, was adamant he would not play safe with his fast bowlers this year. “While the guys are fit and they’re firing and they’re enjoying playing, you don’t want to hold them back, you want to let them get out there,” he said. “I wouldn’t imagine that we’d be doing too much of that cotton-wool treatment.”
This perhaps gives an insight into the thought process behind risking Carse last weekend.
Yet it’s not as if his injury exists in a vacuum. Only last summer Wood was ruled out with a serious elbow injury following a precautionary scan when he’d already pulled up with a groin issue. At that point he’d played three of England’s four Tests that summer.
Then there’s Test captain Ben Stokes, currently out with a recurrence of the hamstring injury he sustained last summer.
Stokes was rushed back for the tour of Pakistan last October.
He then went down again during that final Test in New Zealand, the dead rubber in Hamilton Carse probably should have been rested for.
England have done well so far to manage Archer’s return from international cricket.
He has yet to play a Test since coming back from serious long-term injury issues midway through last year. But he is expected to do so this summer against India, a situation complicated by England allowing him to play in this year’s Indian Premier League.
Whenever he does return to red-ball cricket, he will have to be wrapped in cotton wool at times. So should some of the others next summer, including Wood and Carse.
Otherwise England cannot say they were not warned if they lose key players for the Ashes in Australia.
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