Worcestershire pace bowler Adam Finch is delaying knee surgery until the end of the season to be available for the finale of the Vitality County Championship campaign and wants to do all he can to help the club maintain their top flight status.
Finch has been sidelined since the end of June since suffering the setback against Surrey in the Championship fixture at Visit Worcestershire New Road.
Scans showed the 24-year-old has suffered a double tear, to a capsule in his knee and the meniscus, and it is the latter which requires an operation and lengthy rehabilitation work.
But Finch is willing to put back going under the knife until the close season to play his part in attempting to secure another campaign in Division One.
He said: “The idea is to put off surgery until after the season so I can hopefully get through these games before having it.
“From what Andy Powell (Head Of Sports Science And Medicine) and the doctor have said, it is a pretty long rehab, so the sooner I can get it done at the end of the season, the better.
“But if it was possible to, I wanted to contribute in any way I could to try and help the team stay up essentially.
“It has been a massive ambition of ours the whole year and, if I could, I wanted to play as much as a role as I could in that as I can.
“I’m okay to play against Kent and it sounds as if Leachy (Joe Leach) should be all good as well. I’m just keen to get back and help the lads in anyway I can really.”
Head Coach Alan Richardson said: “I think it will be the same countrywide but certainly with us Dolly (Brett D’Oliveira) has put his body on the line throughout the season.
“We know where Joe (Leach) is at and now Adam is doing something similar. A lot of the guys will have (injury) grumbles, some more so than others, but those three guys definitely stand out.
“But it just shows the character of those players. They want to do as much as they can to help the team and the club.”
Finch admitted: “Everyone wanting to stay up massively contributed to my decision to put off the surgery.
“Since going up last year, there has been lots of discussion about how amazing it would be for us as a county to stay up.
“The lads are really excited for the next five games, to put everything into it, and say we did everything we could to stay up.
“We are in a really good place and if we can get a win or two and keep performing positively, we can be in a good place to achieve that goal.”
Finch sustained the injury when bowling against Surrey.
He said: “I pulled back to bowl on a ball and felt this twinge in the back of my knee. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t get on with so at the end of the day I went and saw Powelly but the next morning it was pretty painful.
“I went for a scan the day after the Surrey game and it showed I’d torn a capsule in my knee which was probably the thing I felt when I was pulling back.
“But it also showed I had a tear in my meniscus and that is what I’ve got sorted in the winter.”
Finch picked up 28 wickets in seven Championship games last season including his first five wicket hauls against Glamorgan and Yorkshire.
He had taken 13 wickets in six games during the current campaign before the injury.
