5 Cricketers who survived deadly accidents

Cricket is not a contact sport, but it demands a high level of fitness and strict training routines. Therefore, sportspersons are inescapable from injuries. Injuries on the field or while practising are mostly internal; external ones are caused by off the field accidents.

Apart from getting injured on the field, players have been involved in accidents outside the playing ground too. Some of the injuries-completely unrelated with the game has been bizarre and therefore the player had to miss out on match time. Few of the off-field accidents were so dangerous; it could have ended the life of the player, let alone his cricketing career.

Here we look at 5 players who survived deadly accidents:

1. Oshane Thomas

Oshane Thomas is a tearaway fast bowler who once clocked 97mph in the CPL 2017. He was soon drafted into the West Indies limited-overs team and is now a regular feature for them. He has raw pace, a nasty bouncer and a sharp in-swinging yorker- these traits motivated Rajasthan Royals to buy him in the 2019 IPL auction for 1.1 crores.

In February 2020, Thomas was involved in a serious motor vehicle accident in Jamaica. His car overturned in the collision and was rushed to the hospital. His agent, Mark Neita was quoted by Jamaica Observer saying he was “at home resting” after the treatment. Thomas made a speedy recovery and was back for the T20Is in Sri Lanka. The Jamaican picked 5/28 against Sri Lanka in Pallekele, registering his maiden five-for in T20 cricket.

The 24-year-old has had an impressive start to his career. He blew away the Pakistan team in the World Cup with his extra bounce, picking up 4/27. Thomas played 4 games in IPL last year and picked up five wickets and impressed everyone with pace. He was bought back by Rajasthan for 50 Lakhs in the last auction.

2. Nicholas Pooran

Nicholas Pooran is touted to be the future of West Indies cricket, and at the age of 24, he is already a mainstay in their white-ball middle-order. The left-hander averages 49 in 25 ODIs with 1 hundred and 7 fifties under his kitty. Pooran, who is now a match-winner with the bat, was once not even sure of walking again after he met with a horrific accident.

In January 2015, Pooran suffered an injury in a road accident in Trinidad. He was quickly hospitalized and had to undergo two leg surgeries; he was 19 then. “He seriously hurt his ankle and knee of his left leg in the accident.” T&T Cricket Board cricket operations officer Dudnath Ramkessoon was quoted by the T&T Guardian. The report says that the accident occurred while Pooran was returning home after training at the National Cricket Centre at Balmain.

“I was coming back home from training, driving, I was close to home and a car was overtaking another car, so I pulled away. I hit a sand heap and then I came back onto the road and another vehicle hit me.”, Pooran said to ESPNcricinfo.

“I was knocked out and then I couldn’t remember what happened. I just woke up at the accident and I was like, ‘How did this happen?’ I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that this happened. I was taken in an ambulance, couldn’t move my legs,” Pooran said he couldn’t even move his knee.

The southpaw underwent therapy after the surgeries and had to remain in a wheelchair for months. By August he started jogging and a month later did a net session. He returned to cricket in the CPL 2016, scoring 217 runs at 27.12 and smacking 18 sixes in 8 innings. Mumbai Indians bought him in 2017 and later Kings XI Punjab in the 2018 IPL auction for a heavy price of 4.2 crores. He scored 168 runs in 6 innings at a strike rate of 157 in IPL last year.

3. Karun Nair

Karun Nair became only the second Indian to hit a triple century in Test cricket, after Virender Sehwag, who achieved this feat twice. Nair scored the triple hundred against England in Chennai in 2016. But if not for some fortunes on his side, Karun might not have survived a freakish accident he met earlier in the same year.

In July 2016 he was spending holidays in Kerala. Karun, along with his relatives, was going to the Aranmulala temple in a boat crossing the river Pamba. But the boat met with an accident and Karun had to swim for some distance and was rescued by the villagers. Several deaths in that accident were reported including his relatives.

The prodigious batsman didn’t have an easy childhood either. His mother Prema Nair, told the Indian Express that Karun had a premature birth, weak knees and “lung problems” in his childhood. After the triple ton in Chennai, the right-hander played a home series against Australia and after ordinary scores in only 4 innings he was dropped from the Indian team.

4. Mohammed Shami

In March 2018, Shami was injured in a car accident while traveling from Dehradun to New Delhi. He sustained minor head injuries and some stitches on top of his right eye. The wrecked front and right side of his car could comprehend the magnitude of the collision. The accident happened during the phase when Shami was having a dispute with his wife, Hasin Jahan.

On the field, Shami has had prolific returns in the past couple of years. He scalped 47 and 33 wickets in 2018 and 2019 in Test matches. The right-hand pacer formed a deadly trio with Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma and played a major role in India’s historic Test series victory in Australia last year. The speedster took 16 wickets in the series down under.

Shami also made a return to the limited-overs side. The Bengal seamer picked 42 ODI wickets in 2019 at an average of 22. He took a hat-trick in the World Cup against Afghanistan. He ended the tournament with 14 wickets in just 4 matches. In the IPL, playing for Kings XI Punjab Shami collected 19 wickets last season.

5. Bruce French

Bruce French played 16 Tests and 13 ODIs in his 3-year career for England. Averages of 18 and 6 in Tests and ODIs respectively aren’t really the thing he is remembered for. On an odd day, the wicket-keeper batsman faced an incessant series of unfortunate events.

On the Pakistan tour in 1987-88, while practicing, a spectator from the crowd tried to return the ball that hit straight on his head, which he was unaware of. He was taken to the hospital where he met with a car accident outside the entrance. He got stitches near the eyebrows. There is more to French’s tale of woe.

In the doctor’s room, he was hit on the head by a low-hanging light fitting as he was trying to get up from the chair. Bruce’s head really took a major toll that day, which could have been perilous for the former player. He was also bitten by a dog while jogging on England’s 1985-86 tour to West Indies.

Post retirement, Bruce took up coaching with the England team. He has also worked with former England wicket-keeper Matt Prior.