Feature

Lockers, bread rolls, amateur barbers - cricket's famous self-inflicted injuries

Incidents of players being injured when not actually batting, bowling or fielding

Andrew McGlashan
Andrew McGlashan
14-Oct-2019
ICC

ICC

Mitchell Marsh faces a period on the sidelines after taking out his frustrations on a dressing-room wall. Here are a few other incidents of players being injured when not actually batting, bowling or fielding
Be like Stokes was Tim Paine's message to Mitchell Marsh before the Oval Test in September. But he probably didn't mean this much. On the 2014 tour of West Indies, Stokes became so frustrated by a run of low scores that after being dismissed for a duck in a T20I in Barbados he took his anger out on a dressing room locker which resulted in a broken hand. The injury ruled him out of the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh and it was another year before Stokes became a fixture in the team.
The build-up to West Indies' 1998-99 tour of South Africa had already been chaotic with the series almost canceled amid a threats of a strike by the West Indies players. At the 11th hour, a deal was agreed, but on the flight to Johannesburg, Adams severed the tendons in his hand while cutting a bread roll. It proved serious enough to rule him out of the series. West Indies lost 5-0.
During the 2018 T20 Blast, Roy was forced to miss a game after being struck in the face by his bat, which he had thrown in frustration at being dismissed against Hampshire. "I'm extremely embarrassed and apologetic to my team-mates and fans for this moment of stupidity," Roy said. "I want to apologise to Surrey as a club and all the members. I threw my bat into the ground purely out of self-frustration. It bounced, hit me, and as a result I sustained the injury."
On the eve of the third Test against England at Johannesburg in 2015-16, Quinton de Kock was out walking his dogs when he slipped and injured his knee. De Kock was ruled out of the match and it resulted in a hasty call-up for Dane Vilas, who had to fly across the country and arrived an hour after play started.
At the WACA in 1982, Alderman was struck on the back of the head by one of the many pitch invaders who were a problem during the Ashes. He decided to chase after the man himself. "I could see that there were no police in the vicinity so I attempted to apprehend him." He managed to rugby-tackle the spectator, a 19-year-old Englishman named Gary Donnison, but in the process landed badly on his right shoulder dislocating it. It would keep him out of action for a year.
Not quite an injury, but certainly self-inflicted. The day after arriving in the Caribbean, Lewis decided to get a haircut and used Devon Malcolm as the barber. The result was a completely shaved head. Lewis then got on with the first week of training, only he opted not to wear a hat. Come the opening tour match against an Antigua XI he was ruled out with sunstroke. "I've been telling him all week to wear a hat," Dave Roberts, the England physio, said.
While on his way to the Caribbean for England Lions' tour of the West Indies in 2018, Garton faced a race against the clock to catch a connecting flight from Los Angeles airport. Fearing a long wait in the terminal, he ran to the baggage carousel to pull his 30kg bag off, but his haste meant he suffered a side strain in the process. "It was a pretty freakish injury and one that really sucked, to be honest," he said, after he had missed the whole of the tour, plus the majority of the following season.

Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo