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After Matthew Kuhnemann sustained a compound dislocation to his right thumb during the Big Bash League, his presence in Australia's Test tour of Sri Lanka became a major doubt, however, proving everyone wrong, the left-arm spinner marked a remarkable recovery and ended up playing an instrumental role in his team's huge win in the sub-continent.
On January 16, when Kuhnemann dislocated his thumb, Dr Steve Frederiksen was present at the Gabba as a spectator. Just after the incident, Frederiksen went to the dressing room to assess the nature of the injury. Just over two weeks later, Kuhnemann scythed nine wickets in the opening Test, playing a massive part in Australia's astounding innings and 242-run hiding of Sri Lanka. Australia head coach Andrew McDonald didn't expect the ball tweaker to regain his fitness for the tour. "I thought he was gone. But as it progressed and got closer to the test match, he was pretty much a lock three days out. Not sure where we would have ended up, but there was plenty of conversations around potentials, and possibilities in terms of selecting spinners. There was a leg spin versus finger spin debate, and we discussed two off-spinners, which we played in Nagpur before," McDonald said as quoted from ESPNcricinfo. Even stand-in captain Steve Smith was surprised to see how quickly Kuhnemann recovered from a dislocated thumb. He lavished praise on the surgeon, who helped Kuhnemann recover from the setback by calling him a "magician." "A lot of credit has got to go to the surgeon who did his thumb. He's a magician I think, not a surgeon," Smith said as quoted from The Sydney Morning Herald. By extracting sharp spin and steep bounce, the 28-year-old was unplayable at times. He even skidded the ball according to his desire to leave Sri Lankan batters scrambling and sweating for runs. "I think he just bowls nice balls consistently. Left-arm spinners to the right-handers, it just works in the subcontinent. We've seen it in plenty of spinners from India, [Ravindra] Jadeja, Axar Patel, guys like that, [Rangana] Herath here in Sri Lanka was a wizard, [Prabath] Jayasuriya is a very good bowler," he said. "Guys who can take the ball away from the bat and present the threats of skid and spin and bowl consistent balls, it's very dangerous. He [Kuhnemann] did a wonderful job when he got his opportunity in India and he bowled beautifully this game," he added. (ANI)
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