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Daniel Vettori's return to the international cricket arena has lasted all of one week.
The New Zealand left-arm spinner was stretchered from the field in obvious pain yesterday after twisting his right ankle during the match against an ACT President's XI in Canberra.
The 22-year-old left-armer was taken directly to Canberra Hospital with suspected ligament damage, and is now thought only a long-shot for the first test starting in Brisbane on November 8.
The youngest spinner in the world to capture 100 test wickets, Vettori fell heavily while fielding off his own bowling in the 18th over, causing a five-minute delay to the tour match, and a good deal of headaches for the New Zealand selectors.
The New Zealand manager, Jeff Crowe, conceded that his star bowler was definitely out of the Canberra match, but he was reluctant to speculate on Vettori's chances of being available again on tour.
"To be honest, no one can make that call," Crowe said last night. "It needs 24 hours of icing anyway, and you don't know whether there's some small fracture that might take weeks and weeks of recovery time."
Crowe said the immediate concern was that Vettori had aggravated his long-standing back injury.
"There was a yell of pain from Daniel and, looking at him on the ground, we were worried about his back complaints. Luckily that wasn't the case."
The Australian tour represented Vettori's comeback after a 13-month injury break from the longer game, and leaves rookie Glen Sulzberger as the only fit spin bowler in the touring party.
Vettori's most recent test was against Zimbabwe at Bulawayo in September last year, when his sole wicket boosted his tally to 106.
He suffered a stress fracture problem in his back against Australia two summers ago, before aggravating the injury during his comeback match against Zimbabwe five months later.
Although recovering sufficiently to play 10 one-day internationals last season, he was not considered fit enough for the demands of the longer game and sat out the Boxing Day test against Zimbabwe and the entire series against Pakistan.
His return to the full version of the game began well enough last week, when he bowled 23 trouble-free overs against the Queensland Academy, and the signs had been encouraging as the New Zealanders prepared for their match at Canberra.
The injury arrived at a similar time he aggravated his back injury in Zimbabwe - after a long off-season - and realised his own worse fears about the comeback.
"The long layoff is a concern," he said last month. "I don't even want to think about what happened the last time we had such an extended break."
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