CA defends sending injury-hit Australians on tour without doctor
By ANISunday, July 25, 2010
MELBOURNE - Cricket Australia has defended its decision to send the national squad to England without a doctor.
When The Sun-Herald asked why Australian cricket had been plagued by a high injury rate, it discovered that the squad often travelled without a doctor.
”There is [a doctor] from time to time,” said Cricket Australia spokesman Peter Young.
”It depends where we are in the world, so in India, for example, we have a doctor with the team. We have [physiotherapist] Alex Koutouris travel with the team and he is highly regarded and has a specific expertise in sports injuries, while we also have fitness and conditioning people who do a lot of preventative maintenance in terms of how they manage the team,” Young added.
Young said Cricket Australia had a comprehensive network of medical practitioners around the world who could be called upon in an emergency.
Young said Koutouris was a physiotherapist, and not a medico, he specialised in treating elite athletes, while Stuart Karppinen looked after strength and conditioning/rehabilitation.
”The scientific management of the team is highly specialist and management of workload is also highly specialist - we’d probably be regarded as the best practice in terms of global elite sport,” Young said. (ANI)
