Stray Shot From David Warner Injures Player During Training Session

No sport is ever truly safe and the same goes for cricket as well, as the Australian team found out the hard way. The issue of safety cropped up again when Indian origin pacer Jaykishan Plaha, was hospitalised. Plaha suffered a blow off a strike from David Warner in training ahead of Australia’s game against India at The Oval.

The medium pacer was on the ground for a while and received immediate medical attention. Afterwards, he was rushed to hospital for further treatment. Luckily, he was conscious, and in high spirits when taken to hospital. Plaha was also cleared off any serious injury after scans at the hospital.

As a result of the incident, Australia’s training session was put on hold and Warner was visibly shaken. To this day, the Australian team is still haunted by the memories of the accident that claimed the life of Phil Hughes.

According to ICC venue manager Michael Gibson, “The net bowler has been taken to hospital as a precautionary measure because it was a head injury.”

“Dave was obviously pretty shaken up,” admitted Australia captain Aaron Finch. “It was a decent hit to the head. Hopefully everything keeps going well for the youngster and he’s back up and running shortly. It was tough to watch.”

After that scare, Australia’s session was back to normal, though questions about safety of bowlers lingered on. The young bowlers often struggle to handle the increase in level of the game. Kishan was hit straight off the bat, but sometimes, bowlers have been hit off ricochets off metal rods that hold the nets together.

Some precautions include coaches wearing baseball style helmets and having their own safety nets. Many have even called for face masks for bowlers, and umpires. In fact, umpire Bruce Oxenford wears a protective shield on his arm to guard against straight hits.

Recently, Indian bowlers Ravichandran Ashwin and Jaydev Unadkat pitched the idea of using face masks for bowlers. Australia skipper Aaron Finch supported the notion even though he had not given the issue any serious thought.

“That could be a decent idea,” he said. “Again, it’s a bit like everything; it’s such a personal preference for net bowlers, and we’re very lucky to have so many of them come in and want to bowl to us and help us prepare as best we can for the game. But I think it’s going to be a personal preference, and like I said, it’s lucky that there were so many good medical team on standby.

“It’s quite rare that somebody gets hit, and it’s obviously very unfortunate. The medical staff that were on hand, obviously our own medical staff, doctor and physio and also the medical staff, paramedics at the ground, did a great job in being there very quickly to assess and make sure that all the right protocols and right processes were put in place. It is a difficult one because you get some guys that are coming in and who probably aren’t as well-equipped with their game to be able to deal with that.”