Internal Oblique Muscle Injury?

I was wondering if anyone could help me with this... ?

I unfortunately suffered an injury on my left hand side to what I believe is my internal oblique muscle while playing cricket 4/5 days ago.

I was batting (right handed) and played a short pitched ball away square to my left. After playing the shot I felt a slight pain in my side but carried on. A short while later I attempted to play a more aggressive shot away to my left (slightly straighter) again, but this time felt an intense pain which made me fall to the floor.

Initially the pain was in most of the left hand side of my torso and movement of any sort was very painful indeed. After about 18 hours it became clear that the epicenter of the pain is fractionally lower than the bottom rib and right around the side of the body - perhaps twice the size of a golf ball in diameter. Discomfort extends about 6 inches from there towards both the front and back of my body.

Things haven't been too bad since. I've given it plently of rest for 48 hours and then started working and gently stretching as best I can. Simple things such as breathing deeply, laughing and coughing caused pain, but have all improved slowly over the last few days and I was generally happy with my progress.

However, I have both hayfever and a cold at the moment and earlier today I sneezed. :roll: All the agonising pain has returned and I feel as if I've been set back to day 1 in my recovery.

My questions are...

Does it sound like I've identified the right muscle? And is a pull or strain particularly serious here?

Will my sneezing affect my recovery time? (Stop giggling - I can hear you!!! lol :wink: )

Are there any exercises you'd recommend? (I'd started with some simple stretching and something to do with pulling your tummy in I found on the web)

thanks in advance

SoS