Australia's Aaron Finch says an injured finger will not keep him out of the Boxing Day Test and joked he would cut off the offending digit to make himself available to face India in Melbourne.
Finch took a Mohammed Shami delivery on his glove in the second Test of the four-match series, aggravating an old fracture and leaving him with a nasty cut.
Fortunately for Finch, scans revealed that he had avoided a fresh break and he returned to training on Sunday for the first time since the injury.
Discussing the issue, Finch said: "It was a bit of a shock, just the initial pain was the thing that got me. It felt like it was going to explode, which was quite funny.
"I think just being hit a few times in the last month, a couple times by [Mitchell] 'Starcy' at training then Shami out in the game, but it's also an old break.
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"I broke the same finger in Sri Lanka a couple of years ago, so I've got to start either catching them or use my bat instead of my gloves.
"It was up there [as the most painful]. I think snapping my hamstring tendon [in April 2015] was probably the most over the last few years."
And the 32-year-old is confident of being involved as Australia look to nudge ahead with the series tied at 1-1 after two Tests.
"Even batting in the warm-up before the second innings in Perth I still felt pretty good," he added. "Catching might be a bit of a different issue, at training I always tape my finger up anyway, but this'll just be a bit of extra padding.
"With a Boxing Day Test and being from Victoria...it's going to have to be cut off, I think!
"I'm going to catch in slips at training and do my normal preparation. If anything changes in the next couple days, I am sure we'll have to sit down and chat about that but, at this stage, it's still business as usual and I plan to field at slip and whatever else is needed.
"It feels like it's improved 100 per cent over the last couple of days."
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