Bond yet to decide on test future

BY AARON LAWTON

EXCLUSIVE: Just days after admitting to those close to him his test career could be over, star Black Caps quick Shane Bond has confirmed he'll make a definitive decision on his playing future within weeks.

The 34-year-old should have yesterday been donning the whites at Wellington's Basin Reserve for day three of the second test against Pakistan.

But instead, he was watching the match from his couch at home after yet another injury setback.

"It's a weird feeling watching the cricket on TV. The pitch looks like a nice one to bowl on," Bond, who is out of the last two tests with an abdominal tear, told Sunday News.

"It's deflating because the season so far – the three or four months I've been back – has gone so well.

"But that's the thing, when you least expect something to happen it always does.

"To have done all that work and get to the point where I've reached the high of my season only to be cut off at the knees is a bummer.

"I've taken this one particularly hard.

"To have everything go as well as it had and also to feel like I was reaching my best form only for this to happen is a real disappointment.

"I almost felt like I had beaten the back of these injuries."

Bond, who returned to the test arena in Dunedin last week for the first time in two years and took eight wickets, discovered the extent of his latest injury on Tuesday.

Sunday News understands that in the hours after hearing the news he floated the idea of quitting test cricket to a number of people.

He yesterday confirmed that was the case but said any ultimate decision would not be made until the emotion of being sidelined again had passed.

"Everything races through your mind when you get an injury like this. And it has in this situation," he said.

"You think about giving up and you ask yourself whether it's worth all the effort.

"I suppose what I want to do is take a couple of weeks away from cricket and wait until the disappointment and emotion from this latest setback – which is something I've always done – subsides before I make any decision.

"From there, I'll sit down and look at things.

"You can't take a decision like this lightly so I will wait until I'm feeling better first. I can't rush this.

"When something like this happens you turn to those people you trust and the disappointment of something like this can make you say things like `Bugger this'.

"But, like I said, if I make a decision about my future I need to wait until the disappointment and frustration is out of the picture.

"Once you finish you're finished for good."

Bond is aware his absence from the Black Caps has prompted some critics to question his commitment to the side.

But he says he heard it enough now not to let it worry him.

"I'm injury-prone. I'm the first to admit that," Bond said.

"What I want to do and what my body allows me to do are two different things.

"The fact that people say I'm injury-prone and that I get injured a lot, well that's true.

"But it's that other stuff like I'm soft or that I don't want to play for New Zealand that frustrates me.

"In some respects, I'm past worrying about that now so I just get on and do what I have to do."

- © Fairfax NZ News