Drumm spent a month battling the pain barrier with broken finger

Lynn McConnell

December 23, 2000

CricInfo Women's World Cup-winning New Zealand captain, Emily Drumm revealed on Saturday evening that she played the whole tournament with a broken finger.

The middle digit of her right hand was broken by Australian fast bowler Cathryn Fitzpatrick in the opening game of the tournament when the finger was pinned against Drumm's knee by the ball.

She was also hit on the elbow in the same game and it was the elbow injury that was used to deflect public knowledge of her broken finger to other opponents.

Drumm missed the second and third New Zealand games of the tournament but the finger never healed completely over the remainder of the event and after Saturday's final it was still bearing the bruises.

She had the finger in a splint whenever she played and while that minimised the pain, nothing could protect her from direct blows to the hand. On the two or three occasions they occurred Drumm said she suffered intense pain.

While she still went on to be one of the leading batsmen in the tournament, the injury did affect her fielding ability, not that that was always obvious.

But after receiving her CricInfo winner's medal she revealed that she had not been able to use her fingers for catching or fielding the ball.

Instead she had to use the palm of her hand, and the extent of the bruising on that showed how often she was required to consciously get her hands in a different position to field the ball.

"I had to play for the sake of the team. I guess it doesn't really matter now," she said.

She also suffered from the jarring effect when batting sometimes during games. But that was not obvious when she played some of the sweetest strokes of the tournament in her various innings. Of her 21 runs in yesterday's final five were from boundaries.

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Series/Tournaments

CricInfo Women's World Cup

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Australia

New Zealand