Image courtesy of: Zimbio

Australia opener Chris Rogers will undergo further tests and treatment after it was confirmed that he is still suffering from dizziness.

As a result, Rogers, who suffered a dizzy spell after being hit above the right ear by England pace bowler James Anderson during the second Ashes Test at Lord’s, has not been cleared to travel to Derby with the rest of the team for their practice match against Derbyshire.

While Rogers was cleared of having a concussion, Australia team doctor Peter Brukner believes that the 37-year-old’s dizzy spells can be attributed to “damage to the vestibular apparatus” near the ear.

This is not the first time that Rogers has been hit on the side of the head as he suffered a concussion when he was struck by Dominican net bowler Anderson Burton during Australia’s tour of the West Indies in May-June. As a result, he was forced to miss the entire series, which consisted of two Test matches.

“We took him to have an MRI scan on Sunday and the MRI was fine,” Brukner said. “We also got another scan there because sometimes you can actually have a small fracture associated with that injury, we had a specific scan, a CT scan, and that ruled out the fracture. We’ve ruled out [the] brain, we ruled out a fracture, so we were left with the damage to the vestibular apparatus.

“Today we took him to see a professor in London, who is an expert in the area of vestibular and balance. She also confirmed that she thought that was the cause of his symptoms, damage to that balance area. She’s ordered some more tests, which are basically balance tests – there are different components of the vestibular and balance system. There’s various tests that can identify which of these components is working and which one is damaged.

“He’ll have a series of tests tomorrow in London. He’ll have one further test on Friday, to test the nerve to that area and then he’ll be reviewed by this professor on Friday afternoon. He’ll also have some treatment, there’s a physiotherapist who specialises in this area who is going to see him on Friday. There are various techniques they can use to help resolve some of these issues.

“He seems to be improving very steadily and it’s a little bit early to say what’s going to happen. But if he continues to improve the way he does, he should be back playing cricket fairly soon. But as to exactly when, we can’t say. At this stage we certainly haven’t ruled him out of next week’s Test, it’s just a matter of seeing how he goes over the next 48 hours.”

Brukner revealed that Rogers was relieved upon hearing that he did not have a concussion as the consequences of such a diagnosis would have probably led to him missing the rest of the ongoing Ashes series and having his international career brought to an end.

“Obviously he’s relieved it’s not a concussion injury. I think it’s fair to say that was a concern he had and we all had, given his recent history and so on,” Brukner said. “But that has certainly been ruled out. Obviously it’s a similar mechanism and he’s been hit in both cases, but it’s a completely different injury. It should resolve and there’s no reason to think there will be any ongoing issues with this balance problem. That’s about all we know.

“He’s basically resting in his room, reading his Kindle. He’s just taking it easy for a couple of days. You manage this really similarly to the way you manage a concussion, you basically wait until the symptoms have resolved and once the symptoms have resolved, you start increasing the activity.”