English cricketer Josh Poysden suffers fractured skull in nets

English cricketer Josh Poysden will miss the rest of the county season after suffering a fractured skull in a training session. The incident took place at Headingley on Monday when a well-timed shot from a teammate struck Poysden on the side of the head. He was immediately taken to a nearby hospital where a CT scan revealed a fractured skull and some internal bleeding.

The doctors at the Leeds General Infirmary have advised Poysden a rest of three months before taking the field again. The good news is that 27-year-old Poysden is expected to make a full recovery from the injury.

“I feel the injury could’ve been a lot worse, so I feel lucky to hopefully be able to make a full recovery,” said Poysden.

“I was just throwing at one of the lads and they whacked one straight back at me, in the side of the head. It was probably my own fault as I wasn’t bowling leggies, I was just tossing up offices and it was hit back at me.”

“I didn’t feel that bad to start with, after it hit me. As the rest of the afternoon went on I started to feel worse so I went off to hospital. I had a CT scan in hospital and it showed that I fractured my skull and had some internal bleeding in my head that hadn’t gone on to my brain.

“I had some slight bruising on my brain and because of this I got moved to the neurology ward at Leeds General Infirmary and had observations for the next 36 hours.

“There were some concerning moments and when the results of the CT scan came through, if my condition deteriorated any more, there was a possibility of having surgery or a procedure which involved inserting a needle into my brain to check on the bleeding. I recovered well so obviously that was never explored.

“I was discharged from hospital yesterday having passed all the observations.

“The consultant told me I would suffer concussion symptoms for the next six weeks and that I need to be really careful to avoid a double impact for the next three months until it’s fully healed.”

After being a part of the second-team for the majority of the season, Poysden had recently been drafted into the first-team for Yorkshire this season and even bowled in their T20 Blast defeat by Derbyshire on Saturday. But now his season has been ended by this nasty injury. Poysden said that he is gutted to miss the season and now he’ll just watch his teammates from the stands.

“My season is effectively over, which is gutting, especially after a period of not being in the first team,” he said. “I was looking forward to this block of T20 and being a big part of it. I’ll just turn into a bit of a fan for the rest of the season and I wish Tom and the lads all the best for the rest of the season. It’s exciting to see the direction we’ve gone in for the T20s this season. We play an exciting brand with lots of skill and hopefully we can have a decent run in the competition.

“Despite these frustrations, I feel like the injury could have been a lot worse, so I do feel lucky to hopefully be able to make a full recovery. It puts cricket into perspective.

First Published: Jul 26, 2019 19:48 IST