Australia’s stop-gap skipper Wade injured, out of New Zealand tour

Sydney, Feb 1 (IANS) Australia's stand-in skipper Matthew Wade was on Wednesday ruled out of the Chappell-Hadlee One-Day International (ODI) series against New Zealand due to a back injury.

The wicket-keeper batsman, who was promoted for the series in the absence of regular skipper Steve Smith and opener David Warner, sustained a back injury during preparations for the opening match in Auckland. He did not feature in the first match of the series, which they lost by six runs.

The 29-year-old will now return to Melbourne for treatment to prepare for the India tour, beginning later this month. Australia will conduct a pre-India series training camp in Dubai.

"It's not a major injury but with the short turnaround between matches and the four-and-half hours' journey by bus to Hamilton for the next match, it's been decided it's best for me to go home and get some treatment in Melbourne," Wade was quoted as saying by the cricket.com.au on Wednesday.

"With Dubai and then India, I'd say I'd definitely be right for that. I'll get that bit of treatment in Melbourne and we're hopeful it'll be fine by Sunday or Monday and I can be on a flight to Dubai and start training pretty much as soon as I hit the ground there," he added.

Wade also clarified he has suffered from a similar injury before.

It's happened to me once before, in Ireland a couple of years ago," Wade said.

"This one's just taken a little bit more time and there's no reason why that's happened. Sometimes you recover really quickly and at other times it's a little slower," he added.

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