Nathan Coulter-Nile ruled out of the Ashes due to injury

A massive blow for Australia ahead of the Ashes, as paceman Nathan Coulter-Nile has been sidelined due to the recurrence of a nagging back injury. This has been the third serious injury reported from the Ashes camp, after England’s Steve Finn and Jake Ball too suffered respective injuries. Coulter-Nile had earlier dismissed Three Lions’ opener Alastair Cook during the first practice match in Perth.

Australia would hope to have their leading pacer Mitchell Starc along with Pat Cumins and Josh Hazlewood throughout the 5-Test match and at the same time they will have to get reasonably good enough back up for each. Coulter-Nile had a good case for himself and he was one of the strongest contenders for the Ashes series. His latest injury not only kicks out his hopes of having a go at England but his career is near to getting jeopardized too.

“Nathan Coulter-Nile has been sidelined with an “aggravation” of a previous stress fracture that curtails his Ashes dreams but could see him return to cricket at the back end of the summer,” Cricket Australia announced on Friday.

Aggravation of old stress fracture

“Nathan experienced some pain in his back following the two-day tour match against England last week. Subsequent scans have revealed an early stage aggravation of his old stress fracture,” Cricket Australia Sports Science and Sports Medicine Manager Alex Kountouris said.

He said that treatment has started for the very initial stage, which means the injury will be monitored from the vert early level.”Whilst this is a setback, the good news is that it has been picked up early so we are only considering a short break from bowling while we monitor him.We expect he will have further scans over the next month which will determine when he can return to bowling,” he added.