Is Corey Anderson done?
Robert van Royen
robert.vanroyen@stuff.co.nz
You have to wonder if Corey Anderson can even do the dishes without his 28-year-old frame creaking, groaning and packing up.
If it’s not his troublesome back keeping him off the park, it’s been a shoulder or groin issue. We can also add a heel complaint to the smorgasbord of injuries the Christchurch-born cricketer has had to contend with.
He’s made of the same stuff as Shane Bond and Jacob Oram – former Black Caps who all too often frustrated fans due to their inability to remain healthy.
Anderson is a match-winner. A booming hitter who can pummel bowling attacks to a pulp, one Black Caps coach Gary Stead dearly wants on board for next year’s World Cup in England and Wales.
If he is healthy ahead of the start of the tournament in May, there’s no doubting the man who once bludgeoned a 36-ball century against the West Indies should be in the squad. But that’s a mighty if.
As former opener, turned commentator, Mark Richardson recently said of Anderson: ‘‘It’s like owning a Ferrari and every time you take it out of the garage it breaks down.’’
He made the statement after Anderson was forced to return home from the United Arab Emirates last month, having succumbed to a heel complaint after playing in two Twenty20 matches against Pakistan.
It wasn’t considered serious, but it robbed him of yet more cricket, and time is ticking for the lefthander to prove he can string games together, and that his frame can handle the rigours of bowling.
Anderson’s unlikely to crack the team as a specialist batsman. If he can’t return to the bowling crease, it could well be Jimmy Neesham joining Colin de Grandhomme as the second all-rounder come the World Cup.
‘‘Corey played really well [in the first two T20s against Pakistan] and showed the power that he possesses and ideally we want him to bowl because it provides another option for us,’’ Stead recently said.
While he returned from his heel injury by captaining New Zealand A against India A at Mount Maunganui this month, he did not roll his arm over.
It leaves Anderson’s surgically repaired back, which is fused together with enough titanium cable and screws to pass him as part-cyborg, untested since it flared up after an 8.3 over spell for New Zealand A in October.
Anderson, who has shelved red ball cricket since his back surgery last year, missed out on the Black Caps squad for the ODI series against Sri Lanka early next month. But all going well, he’ll be on hand for the white ball series against India, to be played in January and February.
Whether or not the Ferrari breaks down again will determine how many matches he can add to his 49 one-day internationals, the last of which he played in Cardiff against Bangladesh last year, and 31 T20 internationals to date.
Having amassed a ridiculous amount of time on the sidelines since making his first-class debut for Canterbury as a 16-year-old, Anderson, Stead and Black Caps fans ought to cross their fingers.