Smith puts off surgery for tennis elbow

Graeme Smith, the South African captain, has decided to delay surgery for a tennis elbow injury until after the home series against Australia, beginning on February 26.

Smith returned home after the 2-1 Test series win in Australia because the elbow injury ruled him out of the following one-day contest. He will see a surgeon on Saturday to assess the problem and discuss treatment plans.

"I'll wait and see what he says. Actually I know what has to be done. My elbow will require an operation at some stage. The big problem is that the international schedule is very busy," Smith was quoted as saying on news24.co.za. "I will need 8-12 weeks to recover from the surgery and there has never been any time. As a result I'll keep on playing with the injury until it becomes unbearable." Smith said he will try to play a couple of local Twenty20 games and regain match-fitness before facing Australia.

Smith first suffered the injury during the IPL in April, where he was playing for the Rajasthan Royals, and it also forced him to miss the last three ODIs in England in August.

Smith has been getting his own blood injected into the tear in his elbow in order to ease the injury and will continue treatment in order to play against Australia. He also broke his hand after getting hit by a short ball during the third Test in Sydney. His estimated recovery time for that injury was six weeks.

Despite the broken hand and the tennis elbow, Smith walked out to bat at No. 11 with South Africa needing to negotiate 8.2 overs in order to draw the final Test. He batted through the pain but was the last man out with minutes left in the match.

South Africa's series victory was their first in Australia and Smith expected their opponents to regroup. "Australia are hurting, and they are going to come back hard at us," he said. "I imagine Stuart Clark will be back, and they always have a very strong batting line-up.

"We are going to need our guys to be fresh, and so we are going to have to manage our bowlers during the one-day series in Australia. We know that with Australia you have to earn every inch, and I think they have a lot of respect for us now. They know we never went away, and we pushed them all the way.

"I am really looking forward to being involved in the Test series back home."