Australia's pace spearhead Ryan Harris looks to have played his last match in 2011 and will not be allowed to return until his body is up to the rigours of five days of cricket.
Pat Howard, Australia's Team Performance Manager, says that Harris's hip and pelvis problems keep the Queenslander restricted to two or three consecutive days play. Although he will return to bowling in Brisbane on Monday, he has been placed on a longer-term injury list.
"The medical team are working particularly hard with a mandate to try to get him back to produce a really good five-day outcome," Howard told ESPNcricinfo.
"We know we could rush him back quickly and get him bowling for two or three days and that doesn't really help him in the long-term or Australian cricket, so we're really looking at how do we get Ryan back to play at his best for five days. We all know if we can get him back to that stage, then we've got a fantastic asset playing for Australia."
"What we're trying not to do is wait until the last day to make a decision on an injured player.
"We didn't wait until 6pm the night before the Test to say Pat Cummins can't play.
"We've said put in all the physio we can, be very active with that and medical services to get him back to 100 per cent, rather than try to put him out at 80 per cent, and we made that decision with a few of the players looking at we've got six Test matches here."
Of Australia's other injured players, Patrick Cummins joined the Australia squad in Brisbane on day two of the first Test against New Zealand. Howard said the team's medical and fitness staff were now working closer with players likes of Cummins and Shaun Marsh.
"Shaun Marsh has been with the team all week, Pat Cummins is coming up to visit, Ryan Harris has been in, Shane Watson's been in, Mitchell Johnson flew back over (for surgery)," Howard said.
"We do want to closely deal with that because that helps the selectors have a deeper squad, that helps the captain understand where his team is going for the next couple of Tests, the strength and conditioning guys monitor that re-entry into games. There is a closer co-ordination of that."
