MacGill suffers knee injury in `boot camp’ by CricketArchive staff reporter

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Player:

SCG MacGill

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DateLine: 5th September 2006

 

Australian leg-spinner Stuart MacGill has reportedly become the latest casualty from the national cricket team's innovative pre-Ashes "boot camp" in the Queensland bush last week.

 

The Sydney Morning Herald reported MacGill, 35, suffered a knee injury during the military-style camp and had to sit out training with his New South Wales state team. It said he was one of four Australian players injured in the camp, which coach John Buchanan designed as an unorthodox method of building team spirit and preparing players for anything England might throw at them in November's home Ashes series.

 

The newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, said Cricket Australia may not have approved the camp had it realized the grueling physical tests the players would face.

 

The country's 25 leading players survived on army rations and had to sleep rough while carrying out tasks such as abseiling, night-time orienteering in the bush and carting water cans up and down hills.

 

Cricket Australia spokesman Peter Young confirmed MacGill's knee strain to the newspaper but said a proper risk assessment had been carried out before committing elite players to the five-day camp. "There are a few aches and pains... (but) we did not want to risk our elite athletes," he said. "It was grueling but we were of the view that they were appropriate."

 

The Australian team is undergoing intense preparation in a bid to wrest back the Ashes urn they lost to England last September for the first time in 18 years.