Refreshed Lynn hoping to avoid curse

Queensland blaster Chris Lynn is hoping the prospect of captaining his state does not trigger the same injury curse it did four years ago.

Lynn has not played a single domestic 50-over match for the Bulls since 2013, with the right-hander undergoing a series of operations for a troublesome shoulder in the intervening years.

In 2014, he was set to captain the side when the shoulder injury struck, restricting him to 11 appearances with Australia A (10 matches) and Australia (one) since.

The 28-year-old was yesterday named vice-captain of Queensland's JLT One-Day Cup squad but looks likely to lead the team in the expected absence of Australia Test rep Usman Khawaja.

"Touch wood, that doesn't happen again," Lynn told cricket.com.au in relation to his 'captain's curse'.

"I always had the intention of playing in the JLT (Cup) this season, then with the injury to Jimmy Peirson (hamstring) and 'Uzzy' (Khawaja) playing Test stuff, I was formally put into a leadership position.

"So to have the vice-captaincy next to my name and – with Uzzy not being there – a high chance of being captain, it feels great."

Lynn sets off tomorrow for five weeks in the Caribbean Premier League with Trinbago Knight Riders, for whom he will line up alongside fellow Bash Brother and Brisbane Heat star Brendon McCullum.

The Australian is enthused about the prospect of back-to-back tournaments, with his fitness and body giving him more cause for optimism than he's had in years.

"The last month I've been ripping into training and the body feels good," he said. "I feel like I've had the best preparation going into a tournament in a long time.

"I'm feeling mentally refreshed as well; I had a good break after the IPL.

"As everyone knows, I've missed a lot of cricket over the past four years, and been quite down at times, but I'm in a really good place at the moment and looking forward to playing again."

Lynn looks likely to bat in the top three for the Bulls in what will be an audition for next year's ICC World Cup. With Australia's best two batsmen suspended and the ODI side recently hammered five-nil in England – the host country for the 2019 tournament – there appears to be positions up for grabs in the batting order.

And Lynn has had as much confirmed to him by national coach Justin Langer.

"(Langer) has expressed that the World Cup is there, but whether or not there's a spot for me is up to me," he said.

"(Langer said to) keep the body right, and don't give anyone any reason to say no to you.

"So the chance is there but I've got to bang the door down with runs. It's as simple as that.

"If I get a World Cup spot then I'll have deserved it, and it will be awesome to be a part of. But cricket's a numbers game – you only have to look at the numbers to pick a side sometimes.

"I'll know myself whether I deserve to be there or not."

Despite his sparsity of 50-over appearances in recent years, Lynn has been encouraged by the way he made his runs in this year's Indian Premier League.

Batting at the top of the order for Kolkata, his 491 runs (11th most in the tournament) came at a relatively sedate strike-rate of 130.23 – some 50 runs per hundred balls down on his numbers from IPL 2017. It was also the lowest strike-rate of any batsman in the tournament's top 15 run-scorers.

"We had a different line-up this year at Kolkata, so I played what was best for the team," he explained.

"I haven't played a great deal of one-day cricket but I felt like the way I played in the IPL was very similar to how I would pace myself across 50 overs.

"It wasn't exactly batting with all the bells and whistles, or just hitting boundaries – I had to grind out a lot of runs and play a lot smarter cricket.

"I feel like my game awareness is getting stronger and stronger. Being a leader in teams now is important to me – I want to lead from the front with the bat, and hopefully I can do that in Queensland colours."