Cricket: Oram not quite there yet

Jacob Oram had to laugh.

With Black Caps coach John Bracewell playing cat and mouse with the media and delaying the announcement of his team for the second test against the West Indies until after the latest round of State Championship cricket, people all over the country were opining that the procrastination must be Oram-related.

Surely Oram had to be rushed back into the side - no matter that he could bowl only a few overs a day off a shortened run-up. This was New Zealand's pre- eminent allrounder they were talking about here and his country needed him.

After all, if he was fit enough to play for Central Districts, then surely he was fit enough for New Zealand, they said.

Oram was indeed fit enough to play for CD, captaining them to a 140-run win over Auckland, scoring 56 and 89 and bowling 13 miserly overs across two innings'. But did that mean he was suddenly ready for the rigours of international cricket? No, not by a long chalk.

"Someone put that to me after the game and I just laughed. I'm just so far off it at the moment," Oram said yesterday.

"I've had a little bit of contact with the team through talking to the medical personnel and a little bit on the phone with the coach and manager and I know they're not even considering me at the moment.

"Right now, the body's a bit sore because it's been quite a while since I played any cricket - let alone a four- day game."

He said he had come through the game without problems from the injury and was surprised at how well he had bowled.

"I was only coming in off a short run-up but I was surprised by the bounce I got off what little pace I was generating in the first innings.

"After that I spent a bit of time batting again, three or four hours or whatever it was, and that drained me a bit and by the time the second innings rolled around I was stuffed, to be honest. I told the boys that it felt like an October/November pre- season game and it was a gentle reminder of how much work I've got to do to get up to full match fitness."

The Stags play Canterbury in Christchurch on Saturday, followed by Northern Districts in Hamilton and provided he gets through those matches, Oram says he should just about be ready to bowl at full pace. But whether he'll be fit enough for the Black Caps' tour of South Africa next month is another matter.

"Not if I'm still feeling like I do today," he said.

"If I'm honest, I'm walking the tightrope to make the tour at this stage. I've got a long way to go before I'm ready to bowl on flat wickets over there to good players like Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis. I'm nowhere near that at the moment, so while I'd love to go to with the team to South Africa - I'm not holding my breath."

Oram says he's happy to be back on the park and to let the rest of the chips fall where they may.

"It's just good to be playing cricket again and if I couldn't have gotten a game for CD, I would've tried to play a bit of club cricket as a batsman. It's felt like a bit of deja vu from last season and the back injury. Although, with something as serious as a back injury, you know you're gone and that's it.

"But with a little thing like a heel injury, it's just amazed me how long it's taken to get it right."

So just what was going on with that infamous heel?

"The thing I can compare it to is running along your driveway in barefeet and standing on a stone. It's a sharp nagging pain that makes you hop off your foot straight away.

"It was kind of like that and from the time when I first did in early January against Sri Lanka ... but now there's no sensation now and it's just a matter of working hard and trying to get match-fit."

- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY