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The then teenager missed months of school after the hit which saw him knocked unconscious, but returned to training only minutes later.<\/p>\n
It was the first of 13 brain injuries that led to his retirement from cricket after receiving expert advice from an independent panel last year – having last played for Victoria in 2024.<\/p>\n
Pucovski played his lone Test for Australia against India at SCG in 2021, scoring 62 opening the batting in the first innings against the likes of Jasprit Bumrah.<\/p>\n
He injured his shoulder while fielding, which forced him out of the series finale at the Gabba, but it was the lasting impacts of the repeated brain injuries to ended arguably the nation\u2019s most promising batter\u2019s career.<\/p>\n
Australia’s Will Pucovski plays a shot on the third day of the third cricket Test match between Australia and India at the Sydney Cricket Ground in Sydney on January 9, 2021. (Photo by Saeed KHAN \/ AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old averaged 45.19 in first-class cricket after debuting for Victoria as a teenager.<\/p>\n
He scored seven centuries for the Vics in the Sheffield Shield, including back-to-back double tons in late 2020 that led to his elevation to the Test side.<\/p>\n
But there are concerns that Pucovski\u2019s repeated head knocks to the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) – which was found in AFL great Danny Frawley, who died at age 56, as well as former AFL players Shane Tuck and Adam Hunter, who died aged 40 and 43.<\/p>\n
His ongoing symptoms include vision problems, headaches, fatigue, nausea, motion sickness and trouble completing tasks on the left side of his body.<\/p>\n
Will Pucovski of Australia celebrates scoring a half-century during day one of the Third Test match in the series between Australia and India at Sydney Cricket Ground on January 07, 2021 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer – CA\/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Pucovski, who is now head coach of Melbourne Cricket Club and a commentator for Channel 7, was only 16 when he was knocked out by a sling tackle at football training.<\/p>\n
Experts have long argued adolescent brains are much more vulnerable to the impacts of, and damage caused by, forceful blows to the head, and require more conservative care than adult brains.<\/p>\n
The Australian Sports Commission requires concussed adolescents to have 14 days of symptom-free rest before they can resume any contact training.<\/p>\n
Pucovski said he \u201cnever felt the same\u201d after his teammate\u2019s knee hit hard into the soft part of his temple during a wrestling drill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got sling tackled into ironically one of my best mate\u2019s knees who was running the other way,\u201d Pucovski said last month at a \u2018Taverners\u2019 function at Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cI literally got walked to the sidelines. And then my only memory was the coach coming up to me and being like \u2018Do you want to keep training?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI am like \u2018Yeah\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I just went and trained for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is probably the biggest day of my life in a weird way because I have never felt the same since that day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went from someone who would do anything and everything to basically sitting on the couch doing nothing for an extended period.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will Pucovski is seen during day three of the First Test Match in the series between Australia and Bangladesh at Marrara Stadium on August 15, 2026 in Darwin, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone\/Getty Images)Source: Getty ImagesFormer Aussie batter Will Pucovski coaching Melbourne Cricket Club at the grand final of the Premier Cricket competition at Albert Ground. Picture: Jake NowakowskiSource: News Corp Australia<\/p>\n
In the statement of claim, it is alleged that he suffered a \u201ctraumatic brain injury from which he has never recovered\u201d.<\/p>\n
It adds Pucovski has \u201csevere head trauma syndrome with symptom severity scores which have never returned to baseline\u201d.<\/p>\n
Neurosurgeon and concussion researcher Professor Gavin Davis said Pucovski required immediate medical assessment and should not have returned to training that day, or been used as the team\u2019s runner the following week.<\/p>\n
He suffered blurred vision during a training session at the school gym the next day and ended up in hospital later in the week.<\/p>\n
Brighton Grammar\u2019s first-grade team had medical support available, but the seconds\u2019 side, where Pucovski played, did not receive the same treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got \u2018foggy eyes\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m like \u2018I can\u2019t see\u2019, thinking I was just tired or fatigued or something, which turned out to be from the concussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next couple of days I just started to feel more sick, the headaches got worse and worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cFive or six days later I started feeling really, really sick and mum and dad took me to hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mental health challenges started pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will Pucovski of the Bushrangers is checked by medical staff after being struck by a delivery from Riley Meredith of the Tigers during the Sheffield Shield match between Tasmania and Victoria at Blundstone Arena, on March 03, 2024, in Hobart, Australia. (Photo by Steve Bell\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Lawyers for Pucovski allege \u201creasonable care was not taken\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an absolute rule, no athlete may return to sport on the day of (brain) injury and requires medical assessment before returning to further activity,\u201d Prof Davis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese instructions are outlined on the AFL community website.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pucovski suffered nine concussions before playing for Australia, and not all of them came from being struck on the helmet by bouncers.<\/p>\n
He was also hit in the head fielding when a ball took a bad bounce, by a ball from adjoining net during a training session, by a volleyball in a warm-up and bumped into a door at home.<\/p>\n
He took a break from cricket in 2022, but upon his return, he was hit in the head while batting twice in early 2024 that led to his retirement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Australian Test cricketer Will Pucovski has launched landmark legal action against the Melbourne private school he attended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-868350","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\/868350","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=868350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}