By Scott Heinrich

If it was anybody other than Steve Waugh, we would probably snigger at the notion of someone playing a Test match less than a week after gashing a hand.

I felt a bit wonky, like I had a big night on the grog Waugh on his Kandy collision

After all, an injury that requires six stitches on a body part pretty crucial to a batsman - and a captain, when you think about it - would be enough to sideline most for longer than that.

But in true form, Waugh has backed himself to recover in time for the second Test against West Indies starting on Saturday.

Waugh is a man whose body has taken a pummelling over the years, not to mention someone who suffers from a degenerative condition to his calf.

Yet for the last decade of Waugh's amazing career, he has missed just eight of the 121 Tests Australia have played.

Indeed, the 37-year-old, one player who encapsulates Aussie toughness, is no stranger to gritting his teeth and getting on with it.

His reaction to his stomach-churning on-field collision with team-mate Jason Gillespie in Sri Lanka in 1999 sums him up perfectly.

Gillespie's leg was broken, and Waugh's face, bloodied with nose at right angles, looked like a sick collaboration between Picasso and Pythagoras.

Both were not long in being airlifted by helicopter to Kandy hospital for emergency treatment.

Waugh's calf problems have seen him on crutches several times in his career

But, badly concussed, Waugh demanded someone fetch his camera from the dressing room first so a snap could be taken of his battered face, the picture later appearing in his tour diary Never Satisfied.

Somehow Waugh was dissuaded from batting in the second innings, but he was back, of course, for the next Test 10 days later.

Soon after, at home to New Zealand in 2000, Waugh was forced to retire hurt after receiving a sharp blow to the wrist.

It endangered his participation in the forthcoming tour to South Africa, but feeling Australia were "on the verge of something special" Waugh battled through the pain.

Perhaps his most vivid show of mind-over-matter determination came against England in the fifth Ashes Test in 2001.

A torn calf muscle had already kept him out of the fourth Test, the Headingley encounter which England won.

Clearly sickened by what he had seen, Waugh ignored medical advice and took to The Oval to set the record straight.

And set it straight he did, hopping and hobbling his way to an unbeaten 157 as Australia had the final say in their 4-1 series win.

His refusal to stay on the sidelines saw him court the dangerous condition Deep Vein Thrombosis, but Waugh said he felt fine upon returning home after a 30-hour flight.

As New South Wales entered the home straight of their Pura Cup-winning campaign this year, Waugh was struck on the head by an errant throw from a team-mate in the field.

A brain scan revealed no internal damage, and naturally he made himself available to play the following day.

Waugh simply does not know when he is beaten.