No Boundaries by Ronnie Irani Page A

let’s go and take it out on some batsman.’
    The standard of cricket was good and I scored runs and took wickets, but my groin and hip were hurting badly and after about six weeks my knee blew up. I knew I had to get it fixed – I dared not go to Essex injured – and after making enquiries I went to see Dr Tony Edwards, a young orthopaedic surgeon in St Helier Bay.
    The first difference I noticed was that there was no rigmarole about needing to be referred by a GP. I just walked into his reception and booked an appointment. He took a look at me, put me on a course of anti-inflammatories and referred me to Graeme White for physiotherapy. After three weeks I was still struggling so I went back. Tony examined my swollen knee, then stuck a needle in it and drained off about 90mls of fluid. As soon as he did it, the knee felt good. It was as though all the pressure had been eased. He also had the results of an MRI scan he’d done and said, ‘You’ve got a lot of scar tissue in the knee. What have you had done?’
    ‘I had a cyst removed from behind the knee when I was about 17.’
    ‘Looks to me as though they didn’t know what they were doing. But don’t worry, we can get you right.’
    I felt he was someone I could trust. I emphasised how important it was that I sorted out all my problems before I went home, and he said that, while he couldn’t fix the hip and groin trouble, he knew someone who could. He arranged for Stewart Walsh, another young orthopaedic consultant, to examine me and he explained that the two lots of pain were connected. ‘If we sort out the hip, we’ll sort out the groin,’ hesaid. ‘You’ve just got some inflammation in the joint and, if I can drop some cortisone on it, that should do the trick. You’ll feel great as soon as it’s done but you mustn’t train or play cricket for three weeks afterwards.’
    I was concerned that the club would send me home if I was out of action that long but, when I spoke to Paul, he said it wasn’t a problem because there was a long break over the Christmas period so I could fit in the treatment then.
    For Stewart to inject the joint, I had to lie on my back with my knees raised and legs splayed out like a woman giving birth. He then slid a needle in through the groin area and into the hip. It didn’t reach at first so he fitted a longer needle and this time I let out a yelp of pain. ‘That’s the spot,’ he said and dropped the cortisone right on it. The only way I can explain the impact is to say it was like those Gaviscon TV adverts for heartburn where the firemen are in the stomach spraying soothing liquid to cool things down. What a feeling, indeed. I knew in an instant that he’d done the trick. He circled my leg around and there was absolutely no pain. He took me outside and made me sprint a couple of shuttles and again I didn’t feel a thing.
    ‘Make sure you rest it up for three weeks and you should be fine,’ he said. I could have hugged him.
    Sure enough, three weeks later, I was able to train hard and play without a problem. I was just over £ 1,000 poorer but I felt great. It was an enormous relief and a good lesson. I swore from that day on I was going to take charge of looking after my body and always seek out the best advice even if it cost me.
    A good chunk of the rest of my cash went on a podiatrist that Tony Edwards introduced me to. I’d been wearing insoles since I was a kid to help with shin-splint and kneeproblems but this guy was something else. He recommended that I switched to Asics shoes. They didn’t do a cricket shoe, so we adapted a cross-trainer by taking the sole off and adding spikes. He also took a cast of my foot and made me my first customised insoles. The difference was incredible. For several years, I spent hundreds of pounds having special insoles flown in from New Zealand but it was worth every penny.
    I enjoyed my last few weeks over there, playing cavalier, painless cricket. I felt sharp. I was seeing