8 of the strangest cricket injuries after Ben Stokes freak accident
After Ben Stokes shared an image of his bizarre injury, we’ve delved into the cricket archives to find eight of the most unusual injuries.
The England Test skipper shared an image of himself with a black eye on Thursday, explaining that he was hit by the ball while teaching Durham youth players, but he is not the only cricketer to have picked up an unusual injury.
Here are eight of the strangest cricket injuries from years gone by.
Mark Boucher
In 2012, Boucher was wicketkeeping for South Africa on a tour of England and it was during the warm-up match against Somerset at Taunton when he suffered a freak eye injury.
Opting not to wear a helmet to keep for leg spinner Imran Tahir, Boucher was hit by the bail after Tahir had dislodged it bowling at Somerset’s Gemaal Hussain.
While his teammates initially celebrated the wicket, attention soon turned to the keeper who ended up needing a three-hour operation after suffering a lacerated eyeball.
The incident brought an end to his near 15 years behind the stumps for South Africa.
James Anderson
Pre-tour training camps are supposed to be about bringing the team together, creating a sense of unity and installing a positive mentality into the squad. What they are not supposed to do is give your star wicket-taker a broken rib.
But this is exactly what took place just ahead of England’s tour of Australia in 2010 when the players were sent to a training camp in Germany.
There, the group leaders thought it would be good fun to have a boxing tournament but it proved to be ill-fated when James Anderson was put against man mountain Chris Tremlett.
With a 25kg advantage, Tremlett unsurprisingly won the bout and gave Anderson a broken rib on the way.
“It was 20 seconds of trying to whack the s*** out of the other guy and I hit Jimmy pretty hard and cracked one of his ribs,” he told the Daily Mail in 2020.
“Luckily he was able to quickly come back because it would have been a disaster if he hadn’t been able to bowl in the first couple of Tests. Jimmy was probably 25kgs lighter than me at the time. I should have been up against Matt Prior or KP. It wasn’t the greatest idea.”
It did not seem to affect Jimmy too much though as he ended England’s victorious Ashes series as the leading wicket-taker.
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Jonny Bairstow
As these latest Ashes series showed, convincing England players not to go golfing is a hard task but even one of their fellow professionals injuring himself on the course was not enough to put them off.
Going back to 2023, Jonny Bairstow’s time in the Test team may have been over but he was in line for a starring role at the T20 World Cup, that is until he went for a round of golf in Leeds.
Whilst there, Bairstow said he slipped while out on the course and broke his fibula in three places, requiring a plate, and dislocated his ankle – ruling him out of the tournament.
Glenn McGrath
Of all the strange injuries, Glenn McGrath’s was perhaps the most impactful.
It’s 2005. Australia are in England for the Ashes. The Aussies won the first Test by 239 runs and looked like they were on their way to retaining their unbeaten record against their greatest foes.
But there was drama even before a ball was bowled as McGrath trod on a rogue ball during a warm-up game of rugby and, in doing so, tore ligaments in his ankle.
England would go on to win the Test in remarkable circumstances that changed the momentum of the series, all while McGrath was forced to watch on from the sidelines.
Amir Elahi
It is one thing to injure yourself while doing a physical activity, it is another matter entirely to do it while dying your hair.
That is exactly what happened to Pakistani cricketer Amir Elahi who picked up an eye inflammation after getting rid of some of the greys in his hair back in the 1950s.
It resulted in him bowling just six overs during India’s 144-over innings. We are guessing health and safety laws around hair dye weren’t around back then.
Jofra Archer
Since breaking into the England side, Jofra Archer has not had much luck with injuries and that was proven in 2021 when he picked up an injury during the dangerous activity of… cleaning a fish bowl.
The England pacer was cleaning his fish tank in his bath (odd) when he dropped it and a piece of the shattered glass got lodged into his hand.
Archer ended up needing surgery to remove some glass from his tendon. No word on whether the fish survived though.
Jason Roy
Back in 2018, Jason Roy was rather annoyed with himself for getting out in a Blast match so launched his bat at the ground.
The only problem is he threw it with such power that it bounced back off the ground and ended up hitting Roy in the face, causing a facial injury that kept him out of Surrey’s final group game.
“I’m extremely embarrassed and apologetic to my team-mates and fans for this moment of stupidity,” he said with his tail tucked between his legs.
Glenn Maxwell
While injuries and birthday parties bring to mind late-night boozers, Glenn Maxwell’s was rather more wholesome but just as significant.
In 2022, he was attending a friend’s 50th birthday party and having a lark in some Aussie sun when he and a friend tripped, causing Maxwell’s leg to get trapped under them.
The result was the Australian all-rounder’s leg being snapped and him missing an ODI series against England.
