Lance Morris will not bowl a ball in the 2025-26 summer. The Western Australia and Australia fast bowler has chosen lumbar “pars stabilisation” surgery after yet another stress fracture in his lower back, and Cricket Australia (CA) say the recovery window is about 12 months.
Morris, 27 and on a central contract, was withdrawn from the forthcoming one-day series in South Africa and from Australia A’s red-ball fixtures in India. After several meetings with CA’s medical staff and New Zealand surgeons Rowan Schouten and Grahame Inglis, he decided on the same operation that revived Cameron Green’s career last year.
“I feel this is the most logical way to realise my full potential and return to my very best cricket for the Scorchers, Western Australia and Australia long into the future,” Morris said. “I also take great confidence in others who have undergone similar procedures and returned to their best. I plan to work hard through my recovery and return when the time is right.”
The operation fuses screws and a titanium cable into the vertebrae to stabilise the fracture. It sounds drastic, yet the return-to-play rate is strikingly high. Ben Dwarshuis, Jasprit Bumrah, Matt Henry and Kyle Jamieson have all come back successfully, while Green was playing Test cricket less than a year after his own procedure. Former Australia physio Nick Jones, now CA’s injury-case manager, will again oversee the rehabilitation phase; he has been through the same programme with Green and Jason Behrendorff.
For Morris, the decision is as much about the future as the present. Since storming into Test calculations early in the 2022-23 Shield season—26 wickets in four matches at genuine 150kph pace—his body has refused to cooperate. He has not managed more than three first-class games on the trot, and his appearances for Australia have been limited to a single One-Day International last February.
He spent most of the last two home summers travelling with the Test squad as cover rather than playing. He toured India in 2023 without bowling a competitive over, turned out three times for Western Australia at the start of 2023-24, then strained a side muscle in just his second ODI in Canberra. Even his one sustained run, eight Big Bash games for Perth Scorchers, was heavily managed.
Those close to the situation admit debate has been ongoing between CA, WA and Morris himself. The bowler has felt fully fit on occasions only to be held back, the fear being that one more stress injury could turn a niggle into something career-threatening. In the end, the pattern of stop-start cricket persuaded all parties that the surgical option was worth the risk.
From a strategic angle, Australia can afford to be cautious. The men’s side have enviable pace depth—Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Scott Boland at Test level; Nathan Ellis and Spencer Johnson pushing in white-ball squads—so no undue pressure exists to rush Morris. Yet his raw pace and skiddy trajectory offer something different, and national selectors will hope the enforced break finally gives him a clear run at the 2026-27 Ashes cycle.
Former Test quick Ryan Harris, speaking on ABC radio, put it plainly: “Backs and fast bowling rarely get on, but if this operation works it can give a bloke like Lance a decade of cricket instead of two or three fractured seasons.”
The next steps are straightforward, even if the timeline feels long. Morris will have the procedure in Christchurch this week, spend around three months with movement-only rehabilitation, then gradually rebuild the bowling workload. Full-tilt spells are unlikely before next winter. If the rehab mirrors Green’s, a domestic return at the start of 2026-27 is realistic.
For now, Morris will miss an entire Shield campaign, another Big Bash and any international windows that pop up. It is a blow, though possibly the final hurdle in a frustrating two-year stop-start story. As he noted in his statement: “I plan to work hard through my recovery and return when the time is right.” That time, if all goes well, should be this time next year.
