Oram talks about amputating injured finger

Jacob Oram is willing to cut off his injured ring finger if it is going to prevent him from playing in the World Cup. Oram will try specially designed splints and pain-killers to ease the pain, but if the problem won't go away he will consider an amputation.

"If it means cutting the finger off, if that's the worse-case scenario, if that's the last resort, I'll do that, there's no way I'm missing this," he told NZPA. Oram suffered the break during the first Chappell-Hadlee Trophy match and he will not test it until the New Zealand squad's first practice session in Barbados on Saturday.

However, Oram is unsure how his finger is healing under the protective strapping. "The plan is get to the West Indies, whip it off and assess the inflammation," he told the agency. "We've got a couple of techniques in terms of taping and a couple of guards which are a lot thinner so they can fit into a batting glove. I'm confident it'll be fine."

He is more worried by the prospect of another skyed catch after his doctors doubted he would be troubled by balls coming straight at him. Oram said the initial impact of the high chance at Wellington did not hurt and it was not until he looked down that he knew something was wrong.

"You know when your finger's not going straight it's bad news," he said. "I thought the worst straight away - two weeks out from the World Cup and your finger's going at right angles. I've seen one replay where I look happy and then I'm swearing - it didn't go down well with mum."