Travis Head has declared his excitement about joining up with Australia at the World Cup this week after making better and quicker progress from a fractured hand than he'd expected.
The key left-hander, who's been sorely missed amid Australia's struggles with two straight defeats at the tournament in India, has been back in the nets after having the splint taken off his broken left hand.
"It's coming along well, and probably better than we hoped," Head told Cricket Australia's official website.
"When we decided not to go with surgery, which would have meant a 10-week recovery, we were told it would be minimum six weeks with the splint before we could look at playing again.
"Going by that plan, the Netherlands game (on October 25) will be just under six weeks from impact which is a pretty aggressive date, so everything would have to go perfectly from here to make that deadline.
"But we'll just see how it progresses over the next few days and I'm excited by the prospect of joining the boys over there later in the week," added Head, who'll fly out from Adelaide on Thursday.
"I wasn't even sure I'd be able to bat when the splint came off but, apart from a fair bit of stiffness given I hadn't been able to use it for the past four weeks, I was able to hit balls and play a fair range of shots."
The 29-year-old picked up the injury during Australia's South African tour on September 15 in the build-up to the World Cup and the man who's scored over 2000 ODI runs at an average of 41.28, with three centuries and 15 fifties, has been a big loss as the team lost their first two matches.
But if he's fit for the Netherlands match, he could also then feature afterwards in key matches against New Zealand in Dharamsala, champions England in Ahmedabad, Afghanistan in Mumbai and Bangladesh in Pune.
Before then, following the opening six-wicket defeat by hosts India and a 134-run hammering by South Africa, Australia's match against similarly winless Sri Lanka on Monday in Lucknow may prove key to whether they make the final four.
