Watson faces six months out with back injury

Shane Watson could be out of international cricket for up to six months after being diagnosed with stress fractures in his back, while Andrew Symonds and Brett Lee also face significant injury lay-offs. Lee is heading for surgery on his left foot this week and could be out for eight weeks, while Symonds is having an operation on the knee that troubled him through the Boxing Day Test.

The injuries have forced a trio of changes to Australia's squad for the Sydney Test. Australia's physio Alex Kountouris said Symonds had been nursing a sore knee since he "landed on it funny in Adelaide" and the intention was always for him to have surgery after the South Africa series.

However, with Sydney now a dead rubber, Australia will take the opportunity to send Symonds under the knife sooner so that he might recover earlier. Kountouris said the exact nature of Symonds' injury was unclear, as was the timeframe for his comeback.

"It's hard to know, depending on what they find," Kountouris said. "We might have a good idea after tomorrow night when he has the surgery. There are things that could cause him to be out for four weeks, it could be eight weeks, depending on the extent of the damage."

Lee's time out of the game is also likely to be eight weeks as he will now have clean-up surgery on his left ankle as well as on the stress reaction in the fourth metatarsal of his left foot. The problems for Lee and Symonds might have opened the door for Watson to play in the Sydney Test had he not also succumbed to an ongoing back injury.

Watson had been playing with a sore back for the past three weeks, although Kountouris insisted he had been available for selection in Melbourne, where he acted as 12th man while Lee was off the field. Regaining full fitness for the Ashes is now Watson's primary goal.

"Unfortunately I got diagnosed yesterday with stress fractures in my back," Watson said on the ABC. "It's been over the last month my workload, especially during the Sheffield Shield games I played for Queensland, really spiked.

"My back has been sore for the last three weeks. I knew something wasn't exactly right when bowling in the nets and my back was really sore. Unfortunately it's part and parcel of what I'm trying to do, building up my workload and bowling overs that I wanted to but unfortunately I just went over the edge a little bit too much."

Watson's best-case scenario would be to return to batting within the next month, although he is unlikely to be able to bowl for at least four months. Kountouris said there was no reason Watson should give up bowling and the injury-prone allrounder is keen to retain both aspects of his game.

"I'm going to have probably four to six weeks rest just to let the fracture heal then start batting, play as a batsman for Queensland, depending on what other games are coming up," Watson said. "Then just build up my bowling again and get things right and hopefully learn from this and hopefully not go to the edge next time and be able to keep bowling for a long period of time.

"[The Ashes is] probably our best point in time from what I've been told already. That's definitely my goal to be able to make sure I'm up and firing before the Ashes so that's my goal as an allrounder."