MANCHESTER - Jacob Oram's cricket tour of England could be over after he suffered a left hamstring strain at pre-match fielding practice at Old Trafford here today.
In a serious hit to New Zealand's one-day series hopes, their key player is likely to be sidelined for between 7-10days with the injury that ruled him out of today's nine-wicket loss to England in the Twenty20 international.
Captain Daniel Vettori said it was the last thing New Zealand needed after their heavy defeat.
"It was huge blow, he's one of the best allrounders in the world so any time you lose him it makes it tough to recover from it," Vettori said.
"I think he's out for about 7-10 days so he could be a struggle for the rest of the series, but when you're presented with situations like that you expect one or two guys to pick up that slack and no one did that today. That was the real problem."
The five-match one-day series starts near Durham on Sunday night (NZT), with the second and third matches in Birmingham on Wednesday and Bristol next Saturday.
Assuming his recovery progresses well, the first match Oram would realistically be available for is the fourth ODI at The Oval in London on June 25.
Injuries have plagued Oram's international career, and today's happened about 45 minutes before the start of play as he chased a ball in the outfield.
It was the same ground on which Oram injured his neck during the second test defeat when he landed on the point of his shoulder during fielding practice, affecting his batting and bowling on the third day.
"Unfortunately with Jake it's happened a few times so I wouldn't say we were shellshocked," Vettori said.
"I didn't see how he did it, I just saw him limping off the field and got the bad news five minutes later.
"He's very disappointed. He'd targeted this series as an opportunity to show himself and how good a player he is. To have another injury, he works pretty hard and it's frustrating for him."
Peter Fulton was a late replacement for Oram today but scored a two-ball duck.
