The former opener played only one Test in his career, against India in 2021 at Sydney. His shaggy hair coming out from beneath his helmet, Pucovski made a chancy 62 in the game in which he seemed to struggle against off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin before being dismissed by Navdeep Saini. (File)Australia cricketer Will Pucovksi’s promising career is coming to an early end due to medical reasons. According to 9News, the 26-year-old Pucovski will retire from all forms of cricket on the basis of recommendations made by a panel of medical experts.
In his brief career so far, which has seen him represent Australia in a lone Test match, Pucovski has suffered a series of head injuries which has led to concussions. The latest one which he suffered in a Sheffield Shield match in March seems to have been the clincher as he hasn’t featured in a game since. It led to Pucovski withdrawing from a County stint with Leicestershire as symptoms from the head blow continued to exist even in the month of May.
Immediately after the blow — which was his 13th since 2018 – Cricket Victoria (CV) had called for medical assessment. In May this year, when CV put out its annual contract list, it included Pucovski’s name in it, but a final decision was supposed to be taken by the medical experts. According to reports from Down Under, the medical team which included representatives from CV, Cricket Australia and independent experts have recommended Pucovski to stop playing cricket because of the head injuries, especially after his symptoms stayed long after the match in Hobart.
According to 9News, the medical team recommended their decision three months ago but have left it for CV and Pucovski to make the announcement. According to the channel, the opener hasn’t been part of Victoria’s pre-season camps and is believed to be overseas currently.
This wasn’t the first time a medical panel has examined Pucovski’s struggles. In 2022, a panel had found some of his injuries were “not true concussions” and more likely related to stress or trauma responses. Earlier this year even the player had admitted that since he was so used to the symptoms regularly, he had got used to them.
“I sort of link the mental-health stuff back to my first concussion…which was when I was about 15 or 16,” Pucovski had told the Vic State Cricket podcast in February. “I have a lot of concussion symptoms that over a seven or eight year period, actually never subsided. You just sort of got used to having them in a way. The brain’s pretty amazing and can find ways to adapt. I would fail concussion tests in the exact same way every single time, regardless of whether I had been hit in the head, and that was over a seven or eight year period,” Pucovski explained of his struggles.
Earlier this year, when he made a comeback after suffering a concussion and scored a century, his name was doing the rounds for a national comeback. And Pucovski admitted a better understanding of his concussions and mental health. In 2019, he had taken a break from cricket because of mental health reasons and did so again in 2022.
“The mental health has been a much bigger issue for me than even the concussions. I don’t fear for my long-term health, it’s more the mental-health side that’s been the tougher part. One day I’ll be ready to tell my whole story and it will probably make a lot more sense. I’ve explained what I’ve been through to my inner circle of people and actually all the responses I’ve got have been like ‘Jesus, I would never have guessed that in a million years, that doesn’t even make sense to me. It hasn’t made sense to me for years, either, but I’ve been on this pathway to understand it all”.
Touted as one of the best of his generation, Pucovski has had a stop-start career because of concussions. Even on his Test debut against India, he ended up dislocating his shoulder while fielding. After his latest injury, former Australia captain Ian Chappell in a column for ESPNCricinfo wrote about his concerns for the player’s mental health.
“There’s no doubt his regular concussions are disturbing but even more concerning is his mental health.If Pucovski were healthy he’d be ensconced as an Australian Test opener. However he’s only represented Australia once,” Chappell wrote.
According to reports, even though Pucovski’s career is coming to a premature end, he will be receiving injury compensation with Victoria and Australia cricket boards set to provide him with further help.
Stay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.
5 min read
