Hit In The Googlies... Sportsmail Looks Back At Cricket apos;s Most Bizarre Injuries

Hit in the googlies... Sportsmail looks back at cricket's most bizarre injuries
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Published: 14:50 BST, 10 July 2012 | Updated: 15:44 BST, 10 July 2012






Agony: Glenn McGrath

It wasn't the best start to what was already a daunting summer tour.




Playing in a warm-up match against Somerset on Monday, the South African wicketkeeper Mark Boucher suffered a freak and https://kraftzone.tk/w/index.php?title=Hit_In_The_Googlies..._Sportsmail_Looks_Back_At_Cricket_apos;s_Most_Bizarre_Injuries gruesome injury when a bail flew up and hit him in the eye. The incident has forced Boucher into early retirement from international cricket.



But he certainly isn't the first cricketer to suffer a bizarre injury. Sportsmail looks at a few other evil strokes of fortune. 

Glenn McGrath


One we probably all remember.

The nation was rapt by the 2005 Ashes, believing that Michael Vaughan's team could win the Urn for the first time in nearly two decades.


But McGrath had dampened expectations by ripping through the England batting line-up in the first test at Lord's, notching his 500th Test wicket in the process.




But then a stray ball left on the outfield at Edgbaston helped change the course of Ashes history. You would have thought the game of touch rugby Australia were playing as part of their second test warm-up would be more dangerous, but not for McGrath who tore lateral ligaments in his right ankle by stepping on the loose (some would say divinely placed) ball.

England won an epic Test and went on to reclaim the Ashes. 
Derek Pringle

Arguably the most mundane of our freak injuries, England all-rounder Pringle was sat stuffing envelopes with complimentary tickets for his friends on the eve of a Headingley Test with Pakistan in 1982.

Leaning back to stretch from the obviously hard labour, his chair gave way and caused his back to spasm between the shoulder blades. Bowling in the game would be impossible. 

Not wanting to disturb the team physio late at night, Pringle attempted to cure his condition by sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

Inevitably, this made his back worse and he had to withdraw from the match. And that's the end of the story… was you expecting something more interesting?

Tony Greig

When you're 6' 7" like former England captain Tony Greig (pictured right), even everyday tasks can be an ordeal. He cricked his neck one morning before a Test stooping to have a shave in a hotel bathroom mirror that had doubtless been positioned far too low for his lofty needs and missed the match.

Chris Old

One of the unsung batting partners to Ian Botham in England's miraculous fightback against Australia at Headingley in 1981, Old was capable of remarkable feats on the cricket field. But the simplest of bodily functions did for him during another Test match - Old let out an almighty sneeze and somehow managed to crack his rib.

Ted Dexter

An England captain in the early 1960s, Dexter went out for a tootle around London in his Jaguar one day, only for it to run out of fuel on the Great West Road. This was 1965, a simpler time, and Dexter decided to push the car to the nearest garage instead of waiting to be rescued. 

Unfortunately, things got out of hand and in a series of events reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch, he lost control, was pinned to a factory gate by his own car and broke his right leg. Dexter never played for his country again.
Matthew Hayden

Not wanting to get lazy during his recovery from a broken finger in 2006, Hayden decided to go for a nice jog. But a local dog took offence at the Australian opener's fitness routine and viciously attacked him, leaving Hayden with a 5cm gash on his ankle. 'It just hasn't been my week,' he moaned.
Chris Lewis

They say mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Not that Chris Lewis (right) had much choice as he spent a long day in the field during England's 1994 Test in Antigua. Trouble was, the all-rounder had been so worried about the soaring Caribbean temperatures, he'd asked Devon Malcolm to shave his hair off. Unfortunately, Lewis went into the field without slapping on the sunscreen, or borrowing a hat, and missed the next match with sunstroke. One well known tabloid dubbed him 'The Prat without a Hat.'

Ian Greig

Returning home after the first day of a County Championship match with Kent in June 1983, the Sussex player snapped his key in the lock. Spying an open window, he tried to scale the side of his house only to fall 18ft and break his ankle. A few years later, Greig was being x-rayed after injuring his finger in a Surrey match. He somehow bashed his head on the x-ray machine and needed two stitches.


Bruce French

But this is nothing compared to French's bad few days. The England wicketkeeper was minding his own business during a net session in Lahore, when a spectator returning a ball struck him on the head. It gets worse. While waiting outside the hospital, French was hit by a car and required stitches. To compound matters, he then smacked his head of a light fitting as he got up to leave.


Shoaib Akhtar


When Akhtar (right) was missing from the Pakistan squad for the 2009 World Twenty20 finals in England, the authorities could have made up any ailment. Instead, they went with the truth - Akhtar had been side-lined with viral genital warts and was undergoing electrofulgration treatment - or the zapping of unwanted tissue with an electrical current.    

Trevor Franklin

A more serious incident now, involving poor New Zealander Franklin, whose 1986 tour of England ended with him being run down by a motorised baggage trolley at Gatwick airport. He was out of the game for 18 months with multiple leg fractures and could never run at full speed again.

Fred Titmus

An accident to rival Boucher's for gruesomeness. On a 1968 tour of the West Indies, the off-spinner was taking a dip in the sea in Barbados when he got too close to the propeller of a small boat and had four toes on his left foot sliced off. Remarkably, Titmus was back bowling in the County Championship the following year, probably because the paltry £90 in compensation paid out by the MCC's insurance policy couldn't sustain him.


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