Smith's race against time: The sickening injury that puts star's West Indies tour in doubt
London: Steve Smith faces a race to be fit in time for the West Indies tour after his badly dislocated finger was put back in place and then stitched up in hospital.
Placed on a splint for the next two months, Smith's finger will be a major impediment to batting, and he will need to test out the digit soon if he still intends to play in the Caribbean. The sickening compound dislocation of Smith's right little finger brought the Australian vice captain to the verge of vomiting on the field after he realised the angle at which it was sitting.
Medical staff were quickly onto the field to usher Smith back into the dressing room.
Smith did not need surgery on the finger, but it did require plenty of patch-up work after the bone pierced the skin on his right hand.
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After getting to hospital, Smith's finger was washed out and disinfected, stitched and then placed in a splint, which he will be required to wear for about eight weeks.
The wound should heal in around two weeks, and Smith will be able to bat if he can tolerate doing so with the splint on his finger.
It's the second compound dislocation that Australia have had to deal with this year. Left-arm spinner Matt Kuhnemann suffered a similar injury to the little finger on his right hand during the Big Bash League, and required emergency surgery to be able to play on the subsequent tour of Sri Lanka.
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