..It..s very, very good to be back,. says Chad Keegan with the verve of a man whose rich promise has been repeatedly thwarted by back trouble and for whom, far worse, inactivity is death. ..Sitting around watching cricket is terrible. I can..t do it. Before my op last summer I didn..t watch or train. I tried to ride my motorbike but that didn..t last..
A rousing Championship return against Warwickshire .. with bat and ball .. was also made conspicuous by a meatier frame. ..I went back to South Africa in the winter for three months, to Durban to train with my uncle who..s a bodybuilder. People had been calling me skinny, so he fed me six meals a day..
He concedes that the back injury, which kept him out for a year, was not managed terribly well. ..They say I..ve had a stress fracture from when I was younger. It..s been like a time bomb waiting to go off. I..ve had pain when I tried to come back, and that..s down to too much bowling. The regime is stricter now. The more I bowl the more my rhythm improves but I have to restrict how much I do..
Rob Steen, The Wisden Cricketer