Ottis Gibson has urged injured new signing Matt Milnes to take positivity from the example of his fellow Matt’s swift recovery from a stress fracture of back.
Current Yorkshire and England quick Matt Fisher has returned to second-team action after suffering his own injury during the first week of the season. He claimed a fabulous 6-9 from 11 overs against Lancashire at Blackpool earlier this week.
Only last week, his soon to be team-mate Milnes was diagnosed with the same injury.
The Kent fast bowler is due to join Yorkshire on a three-year contract this winter.
Yorkshire coach Gibson said: “I sent him a message when I heard he was injured, and I had a good chat with him.
“Matt called me when he got the news about the stress fracture.
“I said, ‘Look, you don’t want this to happen. But that it has happened at this time of the year might be a blessing in disguise because we have the winter to rehab him and get him back in time for the summer next year’.
“The one thing I want him to take from the situation, if there is a positive, is the fact that our coaching and medical staff – all new – have just rehabbed Fish from a stress fracture in four-and-a-half to five months.
“When I explained it to him in that way, he was like, ‘Oh, that’s something to be positive about’.”
Milnes, 28, bowled only 14 overs in Kent’s LV= Insurance County Championship innings defeat against Essex at Canterbury last week.
The Nottingham-born quick had only just returned from Hundred duty with the Oval Invincibles.
Gibson added: “In the next couple of weeks or month, he’s going to be moving with his family from Kent up to Leeds. Then we’ll take control of his rehab.
“He will come in and see our medical people and will get assessed.
“The initial programme is just rest anyway. It’s eight or 12 weeks of rest where he can’t doing anything.
“Then, once he’s able to start doing stuff, we can get him in the gym with our medical and build him back and get him ready for next summer.”
