T20 Blast 2023: Roelof van der Merwe dislocates finger, gets in put back in place in bizarre incident

With the Vitality Blast T20 season in full flow, Essex took on Somerset in the 87th game of the tournament. During the game, in a horrific development, Somerset all-rounder Roelof van der Merwe dislocated his finger while attempting to stop the ball.

The incident occurred in the 16th over of the first innings when Merwe bowled a low full toss to Matt Critchley. As the batter went for a straight drive, Merwe tried to stop the ball but dislocated his finger in the process.

The 38-year-old rushed straight to the physio who put his dislocated finger back in place. Much to everyone’s surprise, Merwe was quick to return to the pitch and bowl the remaining deliveries of the over. The Dutch all-rounder was lucky that he was not hit on his bowling finger. 

Vitality Blast took to social media to share the video of the incident and captioned it as, "Roelof van der Merwe is an absolute trooper: dislocates his finger brilliantly stopping a ball, gets it put back in place, and sprints back to bowl! (Viewing not advised for the squeamish)."

Roelof van der Merwe is an absolute trooper: dislocates his finger brilliantly stopping a ball, gets it put back in place, and sprints back to bowl! 😎

(Viewing not advised for the squeamish)#Blast23 pic.twitter.com/Z7naGZV76p

— Vitality Blast (@VitalityBlast) June 19, 2023

Fabulous knocks propel Somerset to emphatic victory

Talking about the game, Essex came in to bat first after losing the toss. The side got off to the worst of starts as both openers were dismissed quite early in the innings. Feroze Khushi was sent packing for one run by Jack Brooks, whereas Dan Lawrence was sent back for eight runs by Brooks as well.

It were the knocks of Robin Das and Paul Walter, who scored 72 and 51 runs, respectively, that propeled Essex to a total of 186 runs. Coming in to chase the target down, Somerset put in a marvellous effort with the bat.

Tom Banton and Will Smeed opened the innings and amassed 42 and 36 runs, respectively. Furthermore, Tom Abell and Sean Dickson played unbeaten knocks of 40 and 30 runs, respectively, followed by Tom Kohler-Cadmore’s short cameo of 28 runs in 11 deliveries. Somerset were quick to chase the target down and win the game by seven wickets.