Jason Behrendroff says making a short-term sacrifice is worth it for the long-term gain of being pain free when he picks up his son.
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The Tuggeranong junior will have back surgery in New Zealand this week in the hope it will end his injury woes and put his international career back on track.
Behrendorff, who took nine wickets in five matches at the World Cup earlier this year, flew to Christchurch on Thursday for the operation.
Behrendorff has been dealing with the L4 vertebrae problem for the past five years, a frustrating side note to his rise through the ranks and his one-day international debut earlier this year.
The 29-year-old will have a two-hour operation, taking a bone graft from his hip and then putting screws on either side of his spine.
"There have been times when I haven't been able to pick up [son] Harrison," Behrendorff wrote in an Emageo Group blog.
"That's been really hard. There's more to life than just cricket. Going forward I'm really hoping my back is a lot better for life in general and life after cricket.
"In the short-term it's about cricket, but in the long-term it's hopefully about quality of life and that I'll have a more robust and stronger back to keep me going well through life."
The operation will rule Behrendorff out for the entire Australian summer, but he was listed for the player auction for "The Hundred" competition in England at the end of next year. The left-arm fast-bowler has been making his way through the ranks for almost a decade, breaking into Western Australia's side and then earning his first Australian Twenty20 cap in 2017.
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He made his one-day international debut against India in January and then earned a spot in Australia's World Cup squad, destroying England's batting line-up to claim 5-44.
"I've got a very open mind. It seems like a pretty common time frame to return to playing is around six months," Behrendorff wrote.
"That's what Ben Dwarshuis is experiencing at the moment. Initially I thought it could be quite a lot longer than that but if everything goes to plan, we could hopefully be aiming for around that six-month mark, which would be exciting.
"...I feel like all the cases who have had it done before me have come back and played their respective level of cricket that they were at as well, if not better.
"They feel they were able to bowl and move with a lot less restriction than what they'd been putting up with.
"It would have been easy enough to give the game away. And I think if I didn't love the game this much then I probably would have done that.
"I actually remember lying in my bed in Sussex and I was literally thinking: 'Is this all worth it? Do I want to do rehab again?'
"The thing I kept coming back to was: 'Yes, I want this, and I know I'm not done yet. I know I'll do whatever it takes to get back'.
"The exciting thing is that hopefully my best years are still to come with a back that is ready to go and allowing me to bowl fast and do what I like to do."
Canberra's summer of cricket will start next week, with the Prime Minister's XI against Sri Lanka before Australia play Pakistan in a Twenty20 international on November 5.