Specialist paramedics were called to the Wally Tew Reserve in Ferntree Gully, in Melbourne\u2019s outer east, at 4.45pm on Tuesday after the 17-year-old was struck in the neck by a ball.<\/p>\n
The Ferntree Gully Cricket Club confirmed on Thursday the death of beloved player Ben Austin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are absolutely devastated by the passing of Ben, and the impacts of his death will be felt by all in our cricket community,\u201d it wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur thoughts and prayers are with his family \u2013 Jace, Tracey, Cooper and Zach, his extended family, his friends and to all of those who knew Ben and the joy that he brought.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ringwood and District Cricket Association president Michael Finn said Ben was warming up in the nets ahead of a T20 match when the catastrophic injury occurred in front of his teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cMedical assistance was provided by people at the ground at the time until the paramedics arrived,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Finn said the organisation, along with Cricket Victoria, continued to offer its full support to those affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will stand back and give the family all the love and support that we can at this point in time\u2026 it must be an incredibly difficult time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to stand back now and give the family the time, space and respect, they need to process the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teenager died on Wednesday at Monash Children\u2019s Hospital in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
-with AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Specialist paramedics were called to the Wally Tew Reserve in Ferntree Gully, in Melbourne\u2019s outer east, at 4.45pm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-250716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}