Thaindian News

Melbourne, Feb 17 (ANI): The Rock of the Australian team, Mike Hussey, will be missed during the World Cup, but selectors made the correct decision by not picking the injured batsman in their 15-man squad, according to former skipper Allan Border.

Hussey was ruled out of Australia’s Cup defence last week when selectors determined he hadn’t recovered sufficiently from hamstring surgery.

A disappointed Hussey had pointed to the case of Andrew Symonds in 2007, who was selected in Australia’s World Cup squad when he was still recovering from a bicep injury.

However, Border said Hussey’s case is different to that of Symonds. “It’ a different injury,” he told foxsports.com.au.

“It would have been a huge risk to take him. I’m not sure what the actual rules are if you take an injured player over there and you re-injure the same injury. You’d have to start telling porky pies … if you want him replaced,” Border said.

“Just the fact that he’s had an operation to re-attach the hamstring to the bone, that tells me it just would have been a massive risk to take him. I know he was talking it up with his doctors, but I can understand the selectors’ reluctance to take him,” he said.

Border said carrying an injured Hussey during the early part of the tour would have put the entire squad under unnecessary pressure.

“You want to take guys over who are at least going to start fit. To say ‘he might be right for the third or fourth game’, that starts putting your group under pressure. I’d love to have him there, so would we all. But it just would have been a massive risk,” he added. (ANI)