Pace ace Matthew Fisher has put injury woes behind him as he prepares for Lions Test in Sri Lanka

In the space of a month, Matthew Fisher went from realizing a dream to experiencing a nightmare.

The Yorkshire bowler made his England Test debut in Barbados last March, memorably taking a wicket with his second ball. However, in his first game back for his county in April, he suffered a stress fracture in his back that sidelined him until the last game of the summer.

Fisher’s fledgling career has been plagued by injury problems and in the past he has been left low and reduced to tears. But this time, buoyed by being chosen to play for his country, his spirits stayed high. He vowed to return stronger than ever, and as he entered his latest rehab, he had clear instruction for Yorkshire strength and conditioning coach Harry Brooker.

Matthew Fisher made his Test debut for England in Barbados in March 2022 before injury problems

“I told him, ‘I want you to make me look like Australia’s fastest bowler,'” the 25-year-old reveals to Sportsmail. “Literally looking in a mirror, I thought, ‘I don’t look as beefy as some players I’ve seen.'” Cummins, Hazelwood, Starc all seem solid. So I said, “Try to make me look like them.”

‘I ate a lot the first three months. I was not concerned with knowing what my skin folds (body fat tests) were at that time. It was just about trying to get as much as I could so that you can then build the muscle. I’ve gone from 86kg to 91kg and my skin folds are very similar so it’s just muscle. I feel much stronger now. I think I look more like a man than a boy.

It’s not just Fisher’s physique that changed during his time away from the medium. He also tweaked his bowling action in an attempt to avoid further serious injury, and he did so by studying videos of the game’s greats.

Fisher has increased his physique to try and better fit in with England’s Ashes plans.

“If you improve every part of your game, hopefully you’re giving yourself the best chance of not getting injured,” he says. ‘In the first two weeks after my injury, I watched so many different actions from some of the greatest bowlers to ever bowl and thought, ‘What do I want mine to look like? Hadlee, Gough, Rabada, Steyn, Brett Lee. I have so many videos or still images on my phone from that time.

‘I did it myself because you don’t want to have to go through a stress fracture again, you want your action to be safer. I want mine to look more like Anrich Nortje. Not because he’s fast, but it’s the contact from him with his back foot that I’ve tried to model myself on.’

Fisher identified that her back foot was landing on her side instead of straight, causing her feet to cross and she fell, injuring the left side of her back. Interestingly, he believes that it was his desire to swing the ball like his idol that caused his action to fail.

Fisher said he ended up in a “worse position” because he was trying to copy Jimmy Anderson.

“Because I love Jimmy Anderson, I was so obsessed with turning on my side so I could swing him a little more that I turned around and that’s where my foot-crossing came from,” he explains. “Actually, it was me trying to model too much on Jimmy that I thought he put me in a worse position.”

Fisher has admired Anderson since he was a boy, but it was the controversial decision to remove the record-breaking veteran and Stuart Broad from last year’s West Indies tour that saw him earn his first England cap.

Still, his debut came as a shock as he was drafted on the morning of the second Test after Craig Overton fell ill. But taking the new ball on the second day, Fisher caught John Campbell with only the second delivery from him.

“The trial was brilliant and a dream come true,” he says. ‘That’s all I ever wanted to do, play Test cricket for England, so I felt like I really took it all in and enjoyed it. I can remember everything about it. I don’t look back at my wicket because I can see it in my head.

Fisher said he doesn’t see his wicket against the West Indies ‘because I can see it in my head’

‘To then come back and have the stress fracture, it was upsetting, but I’ve been more down from other injuries before. The debut actually lifted me up and I thought, “I want to go back there again.” That’s my biggest driving force because you never want to have just one lid.

Watching England’s ‘Bazball’ revolution from afar, Fisher saw Anderson, Broad and Matty Potts selected as the closers early last summer, before Ollie Robinson and Mark Wood also returned to the fold. Olly Stone is also on the upcoming test tour of New Zealand and Jofra Archer is now set to return ahead of this summer’s Ashes.

But Fisher, who took six wickets in his first match back for Yorkshire in September, remains in the selectors’ thoughts having been awarded a pace bowling development contract in October. He also toured the United Arab Emirates with the England Lions in November and is now with them again in Sri Lanka, where they will play his first game on Wednesday.

Yorkshire’s Fisher returned for the last of his matches in September after suffering a stress fracture

“Getting the fast bowling contract was a huge confidence boost after being injured,” he adds. “Obviously they wanted to stay with me and have my back.

‘If there are injuries to the England bowlers who are in New Zealand, I would like to think he would be in conversation to go there. There have been indoor sessions where I envision bowling at David Warner, so the Ashes are definitely on my mind.

But if that happens, it happens. I can’t really control where I am in the pecking order so for me it’s just about bowling well for Yorkshire. I know how fast it can happen. It happened last winter, so I hope I get another chance at some point. I am confident that I know I can go back there.