Cricket: Bad knee may bowl Doull

By Richard Boock

Injured New Zealand cricketer Simon Doull should find out next week whether he still has an international future.

The Kiwi swing-bowler arrived home from the England tour yesterday morning after aggravating an injury to his right knee, and is scheduled to be assessed by surgeon Barry Tietjens early next week.

The disconsolate Doull - who turns 30 today - confirmed on his arrival that there was doubt not only over his availability for next month's tour of India, but also over his chances of playing again.

"Right now it's just bone-on-bone," he said of the troublesome knee, which he injured during the first test at Edgbaston and then again in the dressing room at Grace Road - following his comeback game against Leicestershire this week.

"I'm not sure whether I can come back or not. I don't know what will happen. I'm supposed to see the specialist next week and I guess I won't know exactly what the story is until after then."

The blow caps an injury-plagued career for Doull, who, after making his test debut against Zimbabwe in 1992, was forced out of the tour by injury soon after and had to wait a further year to play at the top level.

He was also invalided out of the 1994 tour of England (before he even played in first-class match), and last year's tour of Sri Lanka.

The Hamilton-based medium-fast bowler has not had much better luck on the injury front at home either, missing the Centenary test against South Africa and two home tests against Sri Lanka in 1995, before being overlooked for selection during Glenn Turner's eight-test reign in 1995-96.

However, in the time he has managed to play Doull has emerged as the best swing-bowler in New Zealand, and for a lengthy stretch was ranked in the top-10 test bowlers by the respected Wisden Monthly magazine.

Second only to Chris Cairns (of the present team) in terms of test dismissals, Doull has taken 97 wickets and is within reaching distance of becoming the 10th New Zealander to take 100.

He said the question of whether he would eclipse the milestone was not one that kept him awake at night.

"It's not something I think about; I don't let it play on my mind," Doull said from Auckland International Airport. "Naturally, it's something which would be nice to achieve but I've never really been too caught up in stats, so it's not worrying me."

However, New Zealand Cricket's operations manager and ex-officio selector John Reid believes it would be a "great shame" for both Doull and the national cricket team if a worse-case scenario arose from the present injury.

"Simon's not only the predominant swing-bowler in New Zealand but he's well-respected offshore as well and we all hope he can recover from this and continue a hugely impressive career.

"His ability to swing the ball just as effectively either way is quite rare, and he now has the experience to use his variations wisely - which is a key to his success."

Doull's match-winning abilities were demonstrated as recently as last summer, when he took seven for 65 at the Basin Reserve to set New Zealand up for a test series win against India. Since then, though, he has taken just seven wickets for 410 runs in five and a half tests.

Reid said that while the injury was an undoubted concern to the Kiwi side, New Zealand at least had a reasonable depth in terms of pace bowlers.

"It's probably the strongest skill area in the country right now when you look - for example - at our batting and spin bowling stocks.

"We're very pleased with the way Dion Nash, Chris Cairns and Geoff Allott have been performing, we're optimistic about the development of Andrew Penn, Shayne O'Connor and Chris Drum, and we also see possibilities for guys like David Sewell and Carl Bulfin."