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| Matt Prior taking break from England duty because of fitness issues | Matt Prior taking break from England duty because of fitness issues |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Matt Prior has admitted that his international career may be over after he announced on Monday night that he was taking a break for the remainder of the summer because of fitness issues. | |
| The 32-year-old wicketkeeper said he had a series of physical problems which were hampering his performances and he expects to have an achilles operation during his rest from competitive action. | The 32-year-old wicketkeeper said he had a series of physical problems which were hampering his performances and he expects to have an achilles operation during his rest from competitive action. |
| “The decision I’ve made is that I’m unavailable for the rest of this series due to my fitness,” he said. “I’m not retiring or anything like that – I would still love to play for England and I still know what I can offer England – but right now I’m not physically able to be at the level I need to be in order to perform at my level. I’m not doing justice to myself and more importantly the team and that is what matters first and foremost. | “The decision I’ve made is that I’m unavailable for the rest of this series due to my fitness,” he said. “I’m not retiring or anything like that – I would still love to play for England and I still know what I can offer England – but right now I’m not physically able to be at the level I need to be in order to perform at my level. I’m not doing justice to myself and more importantly the team and that is what matters first and foremost. |
| “I’ve had a combination of injuries that have had an impact. My achilles, everyone knows about and is an ongoing problem and my goal was to get it to a manageable place. I tore my quad before the first Test and my right hand has been beaten to a pulp, but the main issue is the achilles. Now we have the time, I want to be proactive about how we deal with it so I imagine that I’ll have an operation.” | “I’ve had a combination of injuries that have had an impact. My achilles, everyone knows about and is an ongoing problem and my goal was to get it to a manageable place. I tore my quad before the first Test and my right hand has been beaten to a pulp, but the main issue is the achilles. Now we have the time, I want to be proactive about how we deal with it so I imagine that I’ll have an operation.” |
| Prior’s place for the third Test against India, which starts on Sunday in Southampton, is set to go to Jos Buttler. | Prior’s place for the third Test against India, which starts on Sunday in Southampton, is set to go to Jos Buttler. |
| “It is a huge decision and not one I’ve taken lightly obviously,” Prior said. “I could have played my last game. I want to go out having won the Ashes again and dancing on the podium but if this is my last game then it is certainly not the way I envisaged going out. | “It is a huge decision and not one I’ve taken lightly obviously,” Prior said. “I could have played my last game. I want to go out having won the Ashes again and dancing on the podium but if this is my last game then it is certainly not the way I envisaged going out. |
| “If that happens and I don’t play again, then that was my lot. I’ll be disappointed because there are a few things that I wanted to achieve and thought I would, but I can also look back and know I did some pretty good things. | “If that happens and I don’t play again, then that was my lot. I’ll be disappointed because there are a few things that I wanted to achieve and thought I would, but I can also look back and know I did some pretty good things. |
| “The toughest part of the decision has been the situation we’re in. I wanted nothing more than to help us get through it and come out the other side.” | “The toughest part of the decision has been the situation we’re in. I wanted nothing more than to help us get through it and come out the other side.” |
| Prior said he failure to hold certain catches this summer, notably one on the first day of the second Test against India at Lord’s had made up his mind. | |
| “I know what I should catch and what I shouldn’t, and the drop on the first morning really hurt me because I couldn’t move the way I needed to. I saw the edge all the way but I couldn’t move as quick as I needed to, and that is when I knew. | |
| “I gave it everything for the next four days and I actually kept better as the game went on but I still knew that I wasn’t at the level I should be at, so that is when it became clear that I needed to stand down.” | |
| There was a valedictory feel as he returned to the Lord’s pavilion, possibly for the last time as an England player. He made a century on debut here and it has remained his most successful ground, but he will want to forget the manner of this dismissal, holing out to one of three fielders placed on the leg-side boundary immediately after Ishant Sharma switched to bowling around the wicket. | |
| Perhaps symbolically, it was as irresponsible and self-indulgent a dismissal as the one gifted to Australia by his former team-mate turned bete-noire Kevin Pietersen in the third Test in Perth last December when the Ashes were lost. | Perhaps symbolically, it was as irresponsible and self-indulgent a dismissal as the one gifted to Australia by his former team-mate turned bete-noire Kevin Pietersen in the third Test in Perth last December when the Ashes were lost. |
| Prior was dropped after that game because of deteriorating form and fitness, but remained a key part of England’s planning for the new era – unlike Pietersen. However his comeback was undermined by the achilles problem he suffered in pre-season with Sussex, which he insisted, like the calf injury he suffered in Australia, had nothing to do with an interest nearing obsession with cycling. | Prior was dropped after that game because of deteriorating form and fitness, but remained a key part of England’s planning for the new era – unlike Pietersen. However his comeback was undermined by the achilles problem he suffered in pre-season with Sussex, which he insisted, like the calf injury he suffered in Australia, had nothing to do with an interest nearing obsession with cycling. |
| He was selected for the first Test of the summer against Sri Lanka in May only because England were so desperate to have his experience as one of four senior allies for Alastair Cook in a team in significant transition. But now he has given up the fight, and joins the list of casualties from last winter’s Ashes disaster, following Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, Graeme Swann and the coach Andy Flower. | |
| He will be devastated not to have been able to help Cook, and the coach, Peter Moores, his former Sussex coach who also handed him that Test debut, rebuild the team without Pietersen. But he deserves to be remembered for the years in which he was the world’s leading wicketkeeper-batsman, and a genuine English equivalent to the great Australian Adam Gilchrist, rather than as a veteran raging against the dying of the light, for all the right reasons. |