County sweat on new injury

6:20pm Wednesday 20th August 2008

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THE opening day of Worcestershire’s LV County Championship Division two clash with Essex was overshadowed by seam bowler Matt Mason suffering an injury to the pectoral muscle in his chest.

The Aussie-born seamer, who has recently signed a new player-coach deal with the club, was only able to bowl one over, a maiden, in the rain-affected first day at Colchester before he suffered the muscle strain.

County’s director of cricket Steve Rhodes admitted Mason’s chances of bowling again in the match are slim.

The set-back comes as a blow to the New Road club’s promotion hopes in the same week fellow paceman Simon Jones was ruled out for the remainder of the campaign with a knee cartilage problem.

If this wasn’t bad enough for Rhodes, two of his young bowling prospects, Richard Jones and Mehraj Ahmed, were also injured on second XI duty today.

Worcestershire chief executive Mark Newton said: “Matt did something to the muscle and it blew up quite badly.

“What he has done is still being determined but it is obviously bad news for our bowling attack having already lost Simon for the rest of the season.”