Jordan Moran is a man on a mission.
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Less than two months ago, while captaining Western Zone in the northern zone NSW Country Championships, the wicket keeper-batsman suffered a broken thumb which ended his tournament and ruled him out of the Orana Outlaws’ Plan B Regional Bash Super Weekend in November.
The injury also put him in doubt for a third consecutive call-up to represent NSW Country at the Australian Country Cricket Championships that get underway in Geraldton, Western Australia, on Friday.
But the selectors named him in spite of the injury, and Moran is determined to prove his value.
“They took a fairly big gamble there and especially having surgery it’s never, the recovery time is never exact,” he said.
“I want to go out and hopefully score some good runs and hopefully repay that faith.”
Moran hasn’t played a game since the injury on November 5, and was in “a fair bit of pain” during a fitness test at Tamworth before Christmas.
But he’s confident he has left no leaf unturned when it comes to his recovery.
“I went back to the physio and the surgeon to see how I could get four or five weeks of strength into it [the thumb] in two weeks. So the last couple of weeks as been fairly full on,” Moran said.
“I got a good hit in [on Sunday] and it went well so I’m confident I’ll be able to get through.”
He’ll have a chance to shake off the cobwebs on Thursday when he stars for the Australian Country side – a squad he was named in after a stellar performance for the Bush Blues at last year’s Country Championships – in a showcase game.
“It has actually worked out well because it will give me a chance to hopefully get a few cobwebs out of my system without jeopardising NSW Country,” Moran said.
“It will be pressure-free but it's always going to be an honour to pull on those colours.”
The tournament itself will kick off on Friday with three days of Twenty20 matches, before moving into the one day format on Tuesday, January 9.
Moran said Queensland and Victoria were traditionally NSW’s biggest rivals, but the inclusion of Twenty20 matches helped even the field.
“It's fairly challenging, since we've got the Twenty20s up first this year so that will test me out but I'm fairly confident that it [the thumb] is strong enough and that I'm well prepared,” he said.
“I’m very eager and just can't wait to get into playing cricket. It's been eight weeks that I've been out injured so I just can't wait to get out there, hit balls and enjoy it again.
“It's going to be interesting to see how people adapt their games after playing three or four days of Twenty20 cricket, so I think whoever does that the quickest is probably going to reap the rewards in the end.”
