WORCESTERSHIRE pace bowler Adam Finch has returned to full training after suffering a knee injury last summer.
Finch sustained the injury in Worcestershire’s County Championship match against Surrey at New Road at the end of June.
He returned to the side against Kent in August as he took four wickets and scored a career-best 43 with the bat to help the Pears claim victory amidst an injury crisis.
The 24-year-old did not feature for the County again following that victory and underwent surgery ahead of the 2025 campaign.
Finch said: “I’m fully involved in training. Richard Jones (assistant coach) planned out a workload for what they need to look like for the start of the summer, and I’m right on course with that.
“Fully participating in everything, no restrictions, which is really, really nice place to be considering at the back end of the summer, with the news I was getting about my knee, it looked very different.
“Feeling really good about it, feeling really positive, haven’t had any issues with the knee I had operated on. Feeling in a really nice place about it actually.
“I just wanted to try my best really [against Kent]. With what I had been told about it, how it was feeling at the time, I thought it was something I could do.
“With the context of the season, I wanted to try and help in any way I could to keep us up. I thought we deserved to stay up and we deserved to be where we finished in the end.
“Any big or small part I could play in that, I wanted to at least try and be available. Obviously it didn’t end up being more than one game but hopefully my contribution in that game was worth it.
“If I had my time again, I’d do the exact same thing and wouldn’t change a decision I made.
“I’d have loved to also have tried and get through the final two or three games as well but it just wasn’t meant to be unfortunately.”
Finch played a key role in Worcestershire 2023 promotion campaign, taking 28 wickets in seven games as the Pears sealed their return to Division One.
Finch added: “I’ve had a few sessions bowling at the batters. It’s been good, I hadn’t really bowled at a batter in Malvern for two years after two winters in Adelaide (with Sturt CC).
“You forget how privileged we are to get in a full run up at Malvern.
“Is the next step to be fit and firing for Desert Springs? I think so.
“That’s March 7, just trying to keep everything in a good place until that point and then try and transition into having a bit of a bowl outdoors which would be equally as nice.
“Hopefully, touch wood, everything is in a good place to be on track for that.”
And Finch is itching to return to competitive action with the Pears to begin their County Championship campaign on April 4.
Finch said: “The time whizzes by, you blink and it flies.
“January feels like a long month but February whizzes by and then, as soon as you get into March, you are really in the midst of preparations to be ready for that first game.
“It is really exciting, it feels like you can almost grab that first game, which is nice.”
