INJURY BLOW FOR TIGERS

TIGERS spearhead Jackson Bird should know his South African fate either today or tomorrow after twinging his hamstring during Tasmania’s Sheffield Shield loss to Queensland.

Bird had scans on Saturday and flew to Melbourne yesterday to meet Cricket Australia medical staff. But he’s facing an uphill battle to play in South Africa with the squad to depart on Thursday.

Tigers coach Adam Griffith said he was unsure of the extent of his strike bowler’s injury. “To be honest it is really hard to judge when they initially do them,” Griffith said.

“He’s up walking around, he’s working normally but there is something there.

“He had the scans yesterday and the medical staff has all the results so they will look at those and work out what’s the best moving forwards.”

It was injury added to insult with the Tigers thrashed by 206 runs. They not only lost Tasmania’s leading wickettaker Bird but also Gabe Bell — the Tigers’ second leading wicket-taker. Bell has been a revelation this season, taking 24 wickets at 19.8, but landed awkwardly breaking his right foot, which could see him miss the rest of this campaign.

“Gabe Bell has got a fracture in his foot, he’s on crutches now and got a boot on,” Griffith said.

The Tigers were coming off back-to-back wins in the Shield leading into the Big Bash break, but lost all mo- mentum at the Gabba as the Bulls took control on day two, dismissing Tasmania for just 115 in its first innings.

Griffith said the situation wasn’t helped by the Hurricanes making last Sunday’s BBL final in Adelaide.

“With our batting there were some poor decisions on our part and probably some that weren’t on our part but that’s the game of cricket.”

The Tigers’ next game is against Western Australia in Hobart starting on Friday.