Photo Credit: Cricket West Indies
Six months ago, West Indies Women’s wicketkeeper-batter, Shemaine Campbelle picked up an injury that had her looking at an extended time away from the team and sport that she loves. Now, Campbelle impressed selectors and coaches to earn herself selection in the West Indies Women’s team that arrived in Pakistan on Monday for three One-Day Internationals against the host in Karachi. From here they will then travel onto the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier 2021 in Zimbabwe from November 21- December 5.
Campbelle attributes her strong and regimented fitness programme as the reason why she has been able to rejoin the team in a shorter time than expected. She followed a rehabilitation programme specifically crafted for her by physiotherapist Neil Barry and executed by local physiotherapists in her native Guyana.
According to Campbelle:
“Due to the rehab time, I was able to do lower body workouts as the injury was to my hand, so cricket skills had to pause for a bit while it healed. My workouts would be every two days as I built myself back, by running in the gym on mornings and evenings. For my cricket skills, I did a lot of one-handed catching with a soft ball, bouncing it off the wall. After getting clearance from the doctor, I started incorporating the injured hand with the same soft ball, until I was able to progress to the hardball and keeping gloves.” “I am looking to come out and play my best by getting some runs to my name along with behind the stumps dismissals. This to me would signal that all the hard work I’ve had to do to get back to this level has paid off and personally it would be nice to end the year on a high note.”
Campbelle holds a unique place in cricket history. She is one of the most versatile cricketers to ever play at the international level. She is the ultimate allrounder as a middle-order batter, spin bowler and also wicket-keeper – a unique accomplishment as the only player in West Indies history to make over 1,000 runs, take over 50 wickets and then take over 50 dismissals behind the stumps. Throughout the history of the sport not many wicket-keepers have bowled, and very few bowlers consider themselves to be good enough to transition to keep wicket. Therefore, Campbelle’s performance record is unlikely to be matched anytime soon. At this stage she has played 83 ODIs and 107 T20Is. She has scored 1,921 runs and captured 55 wickets. She has also effected 79 dismissals – 59 catches and 20 stumpings. Read more here.
Barry outlined some of what was done during Campbelle’s rehabilitation process,
“Once the doctors gave the clearance we arranged for her to see an occupational and physical therapist in Guyana for her to recover rehabilitation-wise very quickly and once clearance was given again, I consulted with our strength and conditioning trainer and we were able to get her safely into lower-body exercises and from there we were able to reintegrate her into cricket-specific activities.”
Name of Author: Cricket West Indies
Cricket West Indies (CWI) governs cricket across the West Indies, a confederation of Caribbean countries. Originally established as the West Indies Cricket Board of Control in the 1920s, it became the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) in 1996 and was rebranded as Cricket West Indies in May 2017 as part of a restructuring effort.
