STRESS fractures are an all-too common hindrance for fast bowlers so Somerset’s Jamie Overton is going to spend the winter tweaking his action after seeing his last two seasons curtailed by back issues.
Now 23, the right-arm quick was seen as one of the most promising young bowlers in the country, but after a stress fracture last season, it is a stress response – the early stage of the injury – which has forced him to call time on this season.
That is inevitably a frustration for Overton, but he is already taking measures to ensure two wrecked seasons does not become three.
“I’m about 12 weeks in and we’ve decided I’m not going to play again this year, which is unfortunate, but we’re thinking more long-term so hopefully I won’t have any more issues with it going into next year,” he said.
“I’ve got the early stages of a stress fracture, which is what they call a stress response. The thing is that it’s in the same place I had my fracture last year. It’s quite a strange one, and it’s the first time they had seen anything like that.
“It’s just a case of resting, they’ve not looked to make me have surgery which is a positive. You can have surgery but they don’t think that would be beneficial for me so it’s a case of being rest. I’ve been trying to get back for the end of the season but it hasn’t healed quickly enough.
“I’ve been working to get my action a bit cleaner. I’ll work on it again this winter because that’s two years in a row where I’ve had the same thing, so I need to change something.
“I’ll work on that over the winter and hopefully that will be beneficial for me. I’m going to change my feet positioning on the crease to be a bit more front on.
“It’s nothing major but hopefully it will make my action a bit cleaner, and hopefully bowl a bit quicker as well.”
Overton’s last top level action came for the England Lions in June, when he felt the pain in his back.
That has seen him miss out on Somerset’s end of season, with the county in a desperate battle against relegation after a disastrous start to the campaign.
A year after missing out on the title on the final day, that has been a disappointment, but Overton insists the talent in the squad is still there, having recently signed a new contract along with brother Craig.
He added: “We had an expectation put on us that we would go well. As players we have felt we have underachieved a bit but that is cricket, you can’t always perform at your best. Hopefully we can find a way of being able to stay up.
“We want to play in Division One, it’s the pinnacle of first-class cricket in England and that’s what we want to do. Hopefully we can be there next year.
“We have got such a young side, and we’re still learning. We’ve got a lot of talent and feel like we should be performing better than we have.”
