Auckland spinner Tim Lythe said his shift to Central Districts was to advance his career in the short forms of the game.

Lythe's remarkable comeback from what should have been career-ending and what could have been life-ending cancer was documented in the Herald on Sunday two years ago.

He believes he could make an impact in one-day and Twenty20 cricket if given the chance. Without guarantees, that is what Central Districts is offering him.

"I've decided to give cricket a really good crack," Lythe, a lawyer, said. "If I'm going to do that, I want to go where I've got the most opportunity to play. Auckland aren't looking at me in the shorter versions of the game and I'd be pushing for a place in the four-dayers.

"At CD, they're open to playing two spinners and there is a possibility I'll get the opportunity to bat a bit higher than I did for Auckland. All around, there are more opportunities for me."

Lythe's last season with Auckland is best forgotten, through no real fault of his own.

To rid his body of the bone cancer he was diagnosed with in 1999, doctors sawed off half his left thigh bone, replacing it with a titanium rod and replaced his knee with a complex prosthesis.

It would have lasted a normal person 10 years. It lasted Lythe six. The
medics did not really contemplate for a minute that Lythe would lead anything other than a relatively sedentary existence following such a hugely invasive process. They certainly didn't foresee a first-class cricket career.

"In October, I had an operation to fix up my prosthesis. Basically I'd worn out a few of the bits in there. I needed them replaced so that set me back coming at the start of the season.

"It put me out for a couple of months with rehab and when I came back, I wasn't ready. I came back too early and performed poorly and couldn't really reclaim my place."

Everything is back in place now. It wasn't so much the prosthesis that was the problem but the bushings and axles that kept it in place. They are made of hard plastic but had worn out with the running and jumping Lythe was doing.

"It sounds like I've passed my warrant of fitness," Lythe joked when asked if he was back to full mobility now.

Lythe will never run the 100 metres in 10 flat and his chances of joining the Royal New Zealand Ballet are slim and getting slimmer (he could, if he chose, qualify for the Paralympics) but Lythe said he was as mobile as he has ever been since the cancer. That's why he wants to have a real crack at one-day cricket.

"If I'm a liability and it doesn't work, then I'll cross that out. But at the moment, I don't feel like I've been given a chance to prove myself."

By Dylan Cleaver Email Dylan