(Where there are no real boundaries!!)

Where Exactly Did it Hit You?

A short list follows of some of the more unlikely cricket injuries suffered by well known players; partially inspired by our very own Alex Berger who missed the first few weeks of the season due to a nasty ankle injury (we are unable to publish the pictures as this website would need an 18 certificate). The injury was the result of a mix of alcohol and a golf kart! And let’s not forget JP's run in with the gate post when attempting to lock up one Saturday night after celebrating a league fifty for the 4s. A very painful experience that required an ambulance and a new pair of glasses!

Chris Lewis

Selected for England’s team to tour West Indies in 1993-4 he decided to shave his head on arrival and promptly went out to practice on a baking-hot day without a hat. The result? Sunstroke. "Chris Lewis baldly went where no other cricketer has gone before," wrote The Sun, "and the prat without a hat spent two days in bed with sunstroke.”       

Ian Greig  (ex Brighton & Hove CC)

The unfortunate Greig snapped his key in the lock after arriving home after playing for Sussex in the county championship match with Kent in June 1983. No problem thought the resourceful all-rounder, as he spotted an open window and proceeded to shin up the wall of his house. Greig lost his footing and fell nearly 20 feet, breaking an ankle in the process.

Trevor Franklin

Franklin’s tour of England in 1986 ended in disaster at Gatwick Airport, where he was run over by a motorised luggage trolley. He suffered multiple leg fractures which kept him out of the game for 18 months and he was unable to sprint when he finally returned. Franklin had already broken a thumb on that tour and five years later he had his forearm smashed by David Lawrence. It was poetic justice that his one and only Test hundred came against England at Lord’s in 1990.

Derek Pringle

Pringle had eclectic tastes in fashion and music in comparison to his team mates and eventually became a cult figure late in his career. His always popular warm-up routine before coming on to bowl, involved him lying on his back and apparently wrestling with an invisible octopus. He once damaged his back when his chair collapsed, forcing him to withdraw from a Test match, although the story usually (but wrongly) told is that he sustained the injury whilst writing a letter.

Bruce French

While on the 1987-88 tour of Pakistan. A well-meaning spectator returned a cricket ball that had gone astray near the nets and inadvertently struck French on the head. French was hit by a car outside the hospital where he was taken for treatment and after having his wound stitched he hit his head again on a light fitting as he got up to leave.

Finally we have to mention (although not an unexpected cricket injury)….

Mike Gatting

When England toured West Indies in February 1986, Malcolm Marshall got a ball to rise steeply off the pitch, striking Gatting a fearful blow full in the face, squashing his nose. Marshall picked up the ball to find shards of Gatting’s nose cartilage embedded in its leather while England, to nobody’s surprise, lost the Test series 5-0. Gatting, who was also sporting two black eyes by now, arrived back at Heathrow Airport to be asked by a reporter one of the all-time funniest or dumbest questions, depending on your point of view: "Where exactly did it hit you?"