Australian all-rounder Cameron Green is expected to miss the third and final Test of the current series against South Africa in Sydney but plans to make a comeback for the tour of India in February 2023.
On the second day of the current second Test against the Proteas, Green was forced to retire hurt after being struck by a rising Anrich Nortje delivery while batting late. He shattered a bone in his finger. The in-form 23-year-old Green has a slight fracture to his right index finger, according to scans, and Australia won't take any chances with him before a busy future schedule. He has been removed from the Sydney Test because of this.
After the hosts lost four wickets for 45 runs on Wednesday morning, Green did return to the batting in Australia's first innings. He completed a valiant half-century that helped Australia finally reach 575/8 declared in their first innings and giving Australia an overall advantage of 386.
Alex Carey (111), who hit his half-century in 66 balls as Australia added 93 runs in the session and their advantage edged closer to 300, found Green to be the perfect foil despite having a fractured finger.
Green demonstrated his batting prowess after Carey was eventually bowled for 111 by Marco Jansen, scoring 50 off of 170-balls despite being forced to miss the following Test due to a finger fracture suffered on Tuesday.
Green, 23, is hoping to be fit for the four-test Border Gavaskar Trophy trip, which begins in early February, even though he will miss the Sydney Test against South Africa and playing for Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash League.
Green did not give a specific return date on Wednesday following the game, but expressed his hope that this week's final Sydney Test would be the only one he missed.
"It obviously hurts not playing for Australia. I've played every game since I debuted so it's going to feel a bit weird watching Test cricket from home," said Green.
"But I'll be absolutely rapt for whoever comes in and hopefully takes their opportunity.
"It's a great environment to be a part of so I'm definitely going to miss it. I'm going to do as much as I can to get it right and try to go to India.
"A lot of people talk about the tour to India, how tough it is mentally and physically. It's going to be a massive tour for us. We're as best prepared as we're ever going to be, so (I'm) looking forward to it," he was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au.
Having retired hurt before stumps on Tuesday, Green bravely returned on Wednesday morning after Australia lost 4-45 in a frenetic half-hour.
"I was only going to go out there if we lost four or five wickets in the first session," he said. "If we'd lost all the wickets in the second session, I wasn't going to go out there at all."
He said initially it was difficult but he decided to go on despite the pain.
"You try to not show the pain straight away," the all-rounder was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au. "I marked my guard again and walked a couple of steps, and I was like 'I reckon my finger is out of place here'.
"I checked on it - it looked a little bit inverted is the only way I can explain it. It already had a big cut in it, then I got the bad news after the scan."