Coughlin shoulder surgery delays Notts bow

Nottinghamshire's delight in pulling off one of the transfer coups of the season when they signed the Durham allrounder Paul Coughlin has been marred by the news that he will miss much of his debut season because of a shoulder injury.

Coughlin will have an operation on Wednesday in Manchester to repair the right shoulder - his bowling shoulder - that he damaged while on England Lions duty.

He joined Nottinghamshire on a three-year deal in September amid an outcry from Durham, whose president, Sir Ian Botham, called for greater compensation for counties losing players produced by their academy system.

Notts hailed Coughlin's international potential and that immediately became evident when he won England Lions recognition and impressed on tour in Australia before Christmas and in the Caribbean in February and March.

But in the Lions' final unofficial One-Day International against the West Indies, he was forced off the field after diving for the ball and landing awkwardly and dislocating his shoulder.

Notts' head coach Peter Moores conceded that Coughlin will now miss "a big chunk" of the season. It is a blow for Notts, who won both limited-overs trophies last season and regained their First Division status in the Championship and had regarded Coughlin's all-round talents as important in re-energising a squad hit by several batting departures in the past year.

"He has been assessed and is going to have an operation on Wednesday," said Moores. "It's obviously a very serious injury and we are not going to see him for a while, but in physio James Pipe and all the medical staff he's in the best hands, and hopefully the surgery goes well.

"He's got a fairly long journey back to fitness and we all feel for him because he'd just joined a new club and made a really good impression in terms of his ability and how he's been around the other lads.

"I'm sure he will commit everything to the rehab which he will have to do, and realistically there is going to be a big chunk of the season which he is going to have to miss.

Moores said of the injury: "He's gone full length to try to get to a ball and with sport there's always a chance of an injury. The commitment he showed in going for that ball is the way he plays his cricket - and why we were so excited to get him."