Jamieson: 'Screws and wire doesn't make you bulletproof'

As Australia allrounder Cameron Green takes his first tentative steps back to competitive bowling this week in the opening Sheffield Shield round ahead of the Ashes, a word of warning has been sounded from across the Tasman.

When Green, and team-mate Lance Morris more recently, were discussing the possibility of back surgery with the medical staff at Cricket Australia, the staggering success rate of New Zealand-based surgeons Grahame Inglis and Rowan Schouten was a huge part of why both went down the path of having screws and titanium wire reinforced into their spine.

But at the time of Green's surgery a year ago, one of the very rare examples of a player suffering a setback out of 20-plus success stories globally was another two-metre quick in Kyle Jamieson.

His fracture had reopened at one of the screws in February 2024. "They hadn't really seen that before or at all, so they were pretty stumped," Jamieson told ESPNcricinfo.

Jamieson, 30, has fought his way back again without going back under the knife and is playing against Australia in Mount Maunganui this week in a T20I series that Green has been rested from to prioritise his bowling return in red-ball cricket.

But it's been a long process to get back to this point after having surgery in February 2023. "What I've learned is that just because you get a couple of screws and some wire and stuff in your back doesn't make you bulletproof," Jamieson said.

"You've still got to respect the loading process. You've got to work through what the actual issues were and still address them. For me, it was none of that. It was just [a case of] have the surgery, sit and wait and then just go and never really adjust the stuff that was putting you at risk. Then you sort of start chucking loading and red-ball cricket and all these different dynamics into the mix, and it just ended up not being able to hold.

"So whilst it gives you a better chance, it doesn't necessarily guarantee you. So that would be probably be my advice, make sure you sort of dive deep and work out what are the things that are causing it, and what are the things you need to fix. If surgery helps with that process, then great, but it doesn't give you the right to neglect the stuff that's causing the issue in the first place."

Jamieson's second journey back has been slow and deliberate. He is still yet to play any red-ball cricket, having rushed back into international cricket only seven months post-surgery in August 2023 and into first-class and Test cricket only two months later. Following the recurrence in February 2024, he did a 10-month rehabilitation before playing again. Green, in comparison, will have gone more than 12 months without bowling a competitive delivery.

"We just stripped back my whole body, the way I moved, and really took a deep dive into what are the things that were actually causing it and actually found a whole lot of stuff," Jamieson said. "Obviously I had the surgery and had some time off, but never really addressed any of the issues around the way my body was sort of stacked up, how I was using it, how I actually activate the right things.

"And then mechanically as well, just a couple of shifts to make sure I can actually make the most of my body and use it in the right way, rather than finding ways to compensate to execute the skills that you need.

"I kind of got into a really bad pattern of finding a way to try and be effective. But that kind of led to my body not being able to hold up as well. So [it was] a long process, but I'm in a pretty good spot now."

The search for answers also took him away from New Zealand Cricket for advice. He found Auckland-based couple Chelsea Lane and Matt Dallow. Lane, an Australian, was the head performance therapist for the Golden State Warriors during their NBA Championship winning seasons of 2015 and 2017, working with some of highest profile athletes on the planet including Stephen Curry. Dallow, Lane's husband, competed for New Zealand in two winter Olympics in the bobsled before transitioning into being a performance coach in track and field.

"They've done a huge amount of work in rebuilding athletes and biomechanics and just how to stack up your body properly," Jamieson said. "They advise on everything, right from how my body's moving, what my gym program looks like, what the [bowling] load numbers look like.

"I have reflection and review processes with them after pretty much every day that I bowl, my sort of weekly, monthly calendar is mapped out with them, my total load tracking is done through them. So I'm pretty much fully through them at the moment, and then apply it into the different cricket environments that I end up in."

It has worked so far. Jamieson got through the Super Smash and a domestic 50-over return last summer before four Champions Trophy matches and two T20Is in Pakistan. He also played two PSL matches and four IPL matches without any issue.

The beginning of the home white-ball summer against Australia and England are the next challenges to tick off but a red-ball return is still some time away.

"I'm building up my loads towards red-ball cricket," Jamieson said. "But we're in a daily discussion around how are you pulling up, where are you at. With my history and where I'm at on the comeback trail, we probably just want to be a bit more respectful of that, and always analysing where I'm at."

A rare winter at home while fully fit, due to the birth of his first child Archie, has put him in a different head space about what his future may look like.

"I've sort of been wrestling with that little bit of late over this winter now that I've moved from a returning athlete to now just a performing one," Jamieson said. "And probably in the past I have looked far ahead with long-term goals but it's something now that I feel like is quite hard for me to do.

"If I get too far ahead of myself, I probably neglect the things that I need to do that make sure that tomorrow I'm safe and able to do my job. So at the moment, I'm very much only looking to the rest of this year with a little bit of an eye on that T20 World Cup.

"Red-ball cricket would be nice. There was a point last year when the injury happened that I wasn't playing cricket again. So to be able to, not just get back to playing, but also playing the highest form of the game would be just an achievement in itself. But I just want to play cricket really. That's probably the biggest part. I'm not really too fazed on where it is or what form it is. I just want to be playing cricket and doing what I love."