Injured Diamonds skipper Natalie von Bertouch defends timing of England tour Injured Diamonds captain Natalie von Bertouch has defended the timing of Australia's tour of England. INJURED Diamonds captain Natalie von Bertouch has defended the timing of Australia's luckless English tour, despite being forced home for more finger surgery. Von Bertouch returned home to Adelaide yesterday to have another operation on her damaged finger, which she aggravated in a practice match against Northern Ireland last week. The midcourt general returned home straight away from the tour in a bid to be fit for the start of the ANZ Championship season, starting in late March. The captain's injury compounded the depleted Diamonds' first series loss to England. Former Australian coach Norma Plummer has questioned the merits of the tour -- in the middle of the trans-Tasman pre-season -- after Australia's second Test loss at Wembley Arena on Thursday. Despite her injury and Australia's results, von Bertouch could see the positives. "It has been an issue for everyone involved whether or not we should have gone," von Bertouch said. But I think what we are doing over there is trying to keep up our pre-season work while getting some court work in and that makes it hard to perform well in Test matches. I'm not making any excuses for the girls. But they have been working pretty hard over there with the focus that we are ready for the ANZ season as well. By the time they come home to their ANZ teams they're going to be a long way ahead in terms of their ball skills and court work than the rest of the team. The star centre is confident she will be ready for the start of the season, but won't take any chances with the injury this time. She had surgery on the same finger after last year's ANZ Championship season. "We are definitely taking a more conservative approach to ensure something like this does not happen again and that it does heal properly," she said. I will try to manage it as conservatively as possible to ensure that it does heal and that I'm confident with it by the time the season starts.