Cricket Australia to develop comeback plan for Shane Watson

Cricket Australia (CA) is reportedly developing a strategic long-term plan for non-playing vice-captain Shane Watson to keep him on the park.

CA's team performance manager Pat Howard agreed that injury-prone Watson could not keep playing all three forms of the game, given his long and difficult injury history.

"You have to sit down with the player and say 'you tell me what your non-negotiables are, we'll tell you what our non-negotiables are," The Herald Sun quoted Howard, as saying.

Watson is one of the very few players in the side who is a regular in the Test, one-day and Twenty20 teams as well as in the lucrative IPL and Champions League Twenty20 tournaments when fit.

"We particularly have to watch those guys who are highly susceptible, who are playing all three forms of the game," Howard said, referring to Watson in particular.

Watson has been ruled out of the first five Tests this summer, and would reportedly not play Test cricket at all this home season if he is not fit for the last Test against India in Adelaide late this month.

"We're not going to make any promises about when he will be back or put any time frames on it. We're seeing improvement, which we're happy with. We have to take a good 12 months focus with Shane as well. How he fits in with the whole year and how and where we can manage his workload as well,” Howard said.

"He played a lot of cricket in 2011 and obviously that accumulated at the end of the year. We've developed an individual player plan for him, which hopefully starts dealing with a few of those issues which have built up over time,” he added.