Steve Smith uses injection to recover in time for India series, ready to take another if wrist pain persists

Australia’s swashbuckling batter Steve Smith revealed that he used a Cortisone injection to recover for the three-ODI series against India commencing on September 22 in Mohali.
 

Smith sustained an injury in his left wrist during the Ashes. As a result, he was not picked in the recently concluded five-ODI series against South Africa whereas Australia lost. Ahead of the ODI World Cup in India, Smith was using braces for a couple of weeks. He used a Cortisone shot last week to speed up his recovery. 
 

So I’ve had a couple of sessions back batting now and it feels pretty normal. Hopefully, I don’t need another one and it just settles it down. But the part of the wrist it is, they’ve said that if I do need another one, then that’ll be no stress as well. Fingers crossed that it just heals up and it’s fine, but (the wrist is) feeling good at the moment,” Smith told the Sydney Morning Herald. 
 

Smith has been a dominating force for Australia in the ODIs. Since the ODI World Cup 2019, he has been Australia's third-highest run-scorer despite appearing in less number of games compared to David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne. The 34-year-old has scored 1,129 runs from 22 innings at an average of 59.42 including four centuries and six half-centuries during this period.
 

Smith gave more insights into his road to recovery as he said, “Initially in the nets, a couple of balls I faced where I got inside edges to them and your bat turns sharply, I was a bit wary of that to begin with because that’s what was actually one of the things causing my pain.”
 

“I inside-edged a couple of balls in the nets the other day and my bat turned sharp, and I was like ‘oh, that was hurting before’ and it wasn’t hurting anymore. So that’s a real positive, and I feel as though I can play all my shots and there’s no pain at all,” he added.
 

Smith’s presence will be crucial in the ODI series against India. His ability to anchor the innings was dearly missed when Australia lost three consecutive ODIs to South Africa by more than 100 runs. 
 

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