West Indies fast bowler Anderson Phillips was sidelined with a knee injury during West Indies’ tour of Australia last December and is awaiting a return to the Reds squad for the West Indies Championship after recovering from it.
Phillip, who played two Tests and five ODIs for West Indies, missed the first two rounds of the West Indies Championship earlier this month and has now fully recovered.
The 26-year-old has since returned to Red force training and is working towards a return to competitive action. Confirmed that he has returned to training but is still not match fit when announcing the squad for the Test series against South Africa.
Speaking to the Trinidad Express, he said that he is preparing well for the third round of matches.
“I am almost back (to 100 per cent). I started back doing some bowling and stuff and would be the re-joining the Red Force team in preparation for the third round of matches in the first-class tournament.”
When asked about his knee injury, Phillip said he was doing some therapy to strengthen the legs and the muscles around the knee, “because the injury was due to the hard surfaces in Australia.”
Commenting further, the young fast bowler said that he is considering certain things while managing his workload.
“There are no limitations on what I can do but there are some considerations in terms of how I go back out and in managing my workload as I ease back into the game and getting back to 100 per cent fitness.”
“The injury is not a mind-changer but I look at it as something where I need to take the time to strengthen back up properly and I look forward to being back out soon.”
Reflecting on the memory of the Australia tour, he said that it was his best tour.
“It is definitely a good environment for cricket with the facilities and stuff, so I really enjoyed it and I look forward to even going back there to express myself even more.”
“I would say the way the Aussies go about their cricket, that is definitely something a youngster can learn from. I definitely looked at the way they go about it with the conditions and all the different aspects of it, so it was definitely a learning curve for me.”
Commenting further, the fast bowler said that cwi will continue to monitor his fitness.
“Definitely they made it clear they were looking and monitoring my fitness… so we will see how that goes. It definitely means a lot that they have plans and are looking at me and it is just for me to get back to full fitness.”
“The main thing is to get back to 100 per cent match fitness and look to represent West Indies in all formats.”