At the end of May this year, Daniel Worrall was half a world away from home and sliding towards, in his own words, "a pretty dark place". Just five weeks into what was meant to be a lengthy stint with English county side Gloucestershire, the pain in the fast bowler’s foot - which he'd been trying to ignore for the best part of a month - had become so severe that he could barely get out of bed. His left foot, his front foot that bears his entire body weight and plenty more every time he bowls, began feeling a little tender after just his second game with his new side, but he shrugged off the discomfort as nothing more than a niggle. "I just hoped it'd get better," he told cricket.com.au. "But it got worse and ended up being too much.

"I'd tried to keep bowling for a couple of games, but after my last one I woke up the next morning and I couldn't get out of bed. "I knew it was gone ... (and) I had to come back home and get it sorted." The realisation that his long-awaited stint as an overseas pro was over before it had barely begun, ruining his plan of showing his wares in English conditions just 12 months out from an away Ashes campaign, hit him hard. And the prospect of returning home for a surgeon's diagnosis that he feared would rule him out for an extended period only added to his frustration. "I was devastated, to be honest," he said. "It's always hard as a quick, you're always going to be injured. But the fact I had a great opportunity, I was bowling well and relishing the chance to be a strike bowler in an overseas team, I was in a pretty dark place for about a month or so afterwards."

Yet, having prepared for the worst, Worrall received some unexpected good news upon his return home; the stress fracture in his fifth metatarsal did require surgery, but his doctor told him he'd be back on his feet in just two weeks. His spirits lifted, Worrall re-focused his 2018 goal from summer in Bristol to winter in Adelaide and, just weeks out from the new season, he was in such good physical shape that SA coach Jamie Siddons was publicly spruiking him for higher honours. But then came another hammer blow; on the eve of the JLT One-Day Cup, Worrall was diagnosed with a lower back injury that ruled him out of the entire 50-over tournament as well as the opening three games of the JLT Sheffield Shield season. Apart from a handful of games for his club side Kensington in Adelaide Premier Cricket, Worrall missed almost six months of cricket in total before his return to domestic level this week for SA's Shield match against WA. And six months of frustration came billowing out at Adelaide Oval as he claimed career-best figures of 7-64 on his way to a maiden 10-wicket haul in first-class cricket.

"In the first couple of weeks of injury, you think 'I might never play again, this might be it'," he conceded last week as he opened up on the mental toll of a winter spent on the sidelines. "I'm just grateful to be out there with a fresh perspective. "I've found out over the last few months that the mental side of rehab is the main part. The hardest part is getting to training at 7.30 when it's five degrees in the middle of the July. But when you get there, being a professional, you've just got to get in there and get the work done."

Worrall’s strong return this week may have come too late to fulfil the pre-season prophecy from Siddons of a Test debut this summer, but both bowler and coach have half an eye on Australia's Ashes campaign in the UK next year. The fact Worrall took 16 wickets at 21 in his brief county stint, most of which came despite the pain of that broken foot, only adds to the coach's belief that his swing bowler could be a factor as the Aussies look for their first series win in England since the turn of the century. "I think Worrall with a Dukes ball in his hand in England would be very difficult to play," Siddons told cricket.com.au.

"He's had a little bit of experience there ... and he wasn't at 100 per cent. "I'm looking for big things from him. He's really keen to make his mark this year and push for higher honours." Worrall will return to Gloucestershire in 2019 and the proposed Australia A tour of the UK during next year's World Cup, designed to provide Australia's red-ball players with an ideal warm-up to the Ashes later in the summer, is also a realistic target. And considering where he found himself at stages during a turbulent off-season, confidently setting such lofty goals is more than he could have hoped for. "You've just got to be in the right place at the right time and bowling well," he says. "That's all you can do. "If you prepare the best you can and perform as well as you can, you can't really have any regrets, can you?"