Daily Times

Spencer Johnson’s toe injury which he has called “bizarre” has left several sports physicians and surgeons baffled.

He snapped a tendon in the middle toe of his right foot during South Australia’s Sheffield Shield game against Western Australia last month. Johnson, 29, bowled 45 overs in the match, just the sixth first-class appearance of his career, on the back of playing four white-ball games against Pakistan in the span of eight days.

It had kept him on the sidelines for a month and he missed defending BBL champions Brisbane Heat’s opening two games of the season. He, however, showed no visible signs of discomfort in an outstanding return on Boxing Day, where he claimed career-best BBL figures of 4 for 20 in Heat’s 33-run loss to Perth Scorchers at Optus Stadium.

“To be honest, we still don’t really know how it’s happened or why it’s happened,” Johnson told reporters after the match. “I think four surgeons have looked at it, four sports doctors have looked at it, and they are all mindblown. “I think we just manage it and look after it and hopefully it will be all good.”

“It’s such a bizarre injury, I could wake up tomorrow and it could be all right. We’re looking after it, we’ll manage it.”

The pain is not constant but strapping is required, which is unusual for a toe and involves a rather complicated process. “It’s pretty hectic,” Johnson said of the strapping. “It really only hurts when I curl over or claw over. We’ve sort of stopped it from curling over [with the strapping] and that seems to work.