Australia team physio Alex Kountouris is hopeful that Michael Clarke will return to the side ahead of the first Test against India in two weeks' time.

The Baggy Greens skipper was ruled out of the recent one-day series against South Africa after injuring his hamstring, while his place for the clash against India in Brisbane was also put in jeopardy.

However, Kountouris says that the injury will not see Clarke miss the whole of the Australian summer, and a return could be on the cards at the beginning of next month.

"It's is not that dramatic that he's going to miss the whole summer," Cricket365 quotes him as saying. "There comes a point where there's no more healing to be done and waiting longer does not give any more benefit.

"The real risks for him are he's got a back injury, it puts a lot of pressure on his hamstrings, he's an older athlete and that's a risk factor. He's had multiple hamstring injuries on both legs. They're not risk factors we can get rid of. I can't put a figure on it right now.

"As he is right now, he hasn't started running, he hasn't started doing any of the functional things that we want him to do. He's not able to bat. So he's not ready to play at the moment. He needs to start running and start doing things before we make a decision on whether he's okay to play. I'm still hopeful that he might be right for the first Test because that's two weeks away."

Australia beat South Africa by 72 runs in Canberra earlier this week.