Morris ruled out for up to 12 months after opting for back surgery

Australia quick Lance Morris will miss the entire 2025-26 season, and is expected to be out of action for 12 months, after opting for the same surgery that Cameron Green underwent last year following another stress fracture in his lower back.

Cricket Australia confirmed on Sunday that the centrally contracted Morris, 27, would undergo pars stabilisation surgery in Christchurch to address an ongoing lumbar bone stress injury after being ruled out of the ODI series against South Africa. He had also been due to feature in the four-day matches on Australia A's tour of India.

After lengthy discussions between Morris, CA medical staff and the surgeons, he will follow the same path that Green took last October. Fellow Australia quick Ben Dwarshuis, India star Jasprit Bumrah, New Zealand quicks Matt Henry and Kyle Jamieson among many others have had the same procedure with screws and a titanium cable fused into their lower back to stabilise the stress fracture and prevent future occurrences.

"I feel this is the most logical way to realise my full potential and return to my very best cricket for the Scorchers, Western Australia and Australia long into the future," Morris said. "I also take great confidence in others who have undergone similar procedures and returned to their best. I plan to work hard through my recovery and return when the time is right."

The surgery is performed by New Zealand based surgeons Rowan Schouten and Grahame Inglis who have two decades of experience performing the surgery on fast bowlers with a staggering return to play success rate. Former Australia team physio and now full-time CA injury case manager Nick Jones has vast experience in the rehab following the surgery having worked through it with Green and another Australia quick Jason Behrendorff back in 2019.

It is a significant step for Morris who has had an incredibly frustrating run with injury. Since bursting into Test calculations at the start of the 2022-23 summer when he took 26 wickets in four Sheffield Shield matches while bowling at speeds over 150kph, he has not managed to play more than three first-class games without interruption since.

He has been carried as a Test squad member during the Australian home summers and went on the Test tour of India in 2023. He featured in three Shield matches at the start of the 2023-24 home summer and made his ODI debut in February 2024 following an uninterrupted BBL but strained his side in his second game in Canberra and played just one ODI last summer.

He played two Shield games at the start of last summer under careful management before playing eight BBL games out of 10 for Perth Scorchers. He played two more Shield matches at the end of the summer and took 5 for 26 in his last Shield game in March against New South Wales but has not played since.

Morris' management throughout the past two years since earning his first CA contract in 2023 has been a source of debate between CA, his state Western Australia and the fast bowler himself.

There have been times when he has been feeling fully fit but regular MRI scans in his lower back have shown recurring areas of concern for CA medical staff which ruled him out of the 2023 Ashes and the 2024 white-ball tour of the UK.

"It's been a bit frustrating," Morris told ESPNcricinfo in September last year. "I guess you call it a stress fracture, but when we scan it, it doesn't have the natural characteristics of a usual stress fracture. So there was some confusion at first around exactly what it was.

"The tricky one for me was I didn't actually have any back pain when I was bowling."

He is also a bowler who has performed better, at first-class level especially, the more he has played but it has been difficulty to strike the balance of getting a string of games together without risking injury.

There will be a hope that the surgery allows him to get some continuity as it has done for a number of fast bowlers globally. But with the exception of Henry recently, who does not bowl at the express speeds of others, many of the fast bowlers who have undergone the procedure have still had their red-ball loads capped with the recent management of Bumrah by India a prime example.

Australia are very keen to have Morris fit and firing ahead of a brutal period of international cricket from October 2026 to November 2027, which includes three away Tests against South Africa, four home Tests against New Zealand, five away Tests against India, a home Test against England to mark the 150th anniversary of Test cricket a possible World Test Championship final, five away Tests against England and an ODI World Cup in South Africa.

Fast bowling depth will be vitally important with Australia's attack on the cusp of a significant transition. Mitchell Starc turns 36 in January while Josh Hazlewood turns 35 in the same month while skipper Pat Cummins turns 33 in May 2026.

Morris and fellow injured West Australian CA contracted quick Jhye Richardson, who is 28, are in the ideal age bracket to come into the team when the big three finish up with Australia's 2024 Under-19 World Cup winning quicks including Callum Vidler, Tom Straker, Charlie Anderson and Mahli Beardman just starting the transition from U-19 to first-class cricket.