No envy as Jaques focuses on recovery
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Injured Australian opener Phil Jaques could be forgiven for being envious of New South Wales colleague Simon Katich.
With Jaques forced into a "half-time break" in his career following an operation on a bulging disc in his back, Katich has taken his chance to open the batting for Australia with great success.
Four Test hundreds in six months for Katich mean Jaques faces an uphill battle to regain his spot in the Australian team when he does return to action, but he said yesterday he felt nothing nothing but happiness for his good mate.
"He (Katich) has had a rough time of things and obviously he's been in and out of the team over the last few years and he's finally been given a good run and he's grabbed it with both hands," Jaques said.
"He's had an awesome summer last summer and he's done really, really well for Australia this summer.
"I'm really happy for him, he's one of my good friends and it's good to see one of your friends doing well."
As to his own future, Jaques said continuing the recovery from his back operation remained his priority.
He hopes to start running within two weeks and is eyeing a return to domestic cricket in late January, with New South Wales's program less than ideal.
"We don't have a lot of cricket on in January, we've got Twenty20 cricket on and coming back through Twenty20 cricket is probably not ideal," he said.
"I'm going to have two good weekends of club cricket and possibly a second XI game which is before that if it comes up and I'm just focusing on that at the moment.
"The next first-class game for New South Wales after Christmas is January 30 so that's what I've got in front of me, it's not deal but obviously it's going to be good to get back to playing.
"I'm treating it like a half-time break at the moment in my career and I feel like I've still got six or seven really good years of international cricket hopefully."
-AAP
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