U23 Tripura player Mithun Debbarma passes away of heart attack during practice session

Cricket is a risk-free game to a certain extent, but injuries are part and parcel of the sport which has encapsulated the minds of millions of people all over the world. But whenever a cricketer or any official loses his/her life on the cricket field, it is a sickening feeling and a sad occurrence happened in Agartala during a practice session on December 3.

The Tripura U23 team was having their practice session in Agartala’s Maharaja Bir Bikram cricket stadium when one of the players Mithun Debbarma collapsed on the ground during the drills and was rushed to the hospital without any delay. The team was preparing for a practice match on the ground and were going through the routine drills when the unforeseen happened, leaving everyone in shock.

Mithun Debbarma suffered a massive cardiac arrest according to doctors

Debbarma, a member of Tripura’s under-23 team, was a resident of Bishalgarh, some 25km south of Agartala and was seen having usual fielding drills with the team when his fellow players reported that he collapsed on the field during practice sessions. The ground staff immediately rushed him to the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital. However, the doctors declared him dead.

After examination, doctors ruled that Mithun suffered a massive cardiac arrest and passed away during transportation to the hospital. They insisted on a post-mortem to determine what exactly caused the heart attack. TCA President Dr. Manik Saha and other senior officials rushed to the hospital after hearing the tragic incident.

This was unfortunately not the first instance of cricketer dying on a field, as the two most famous instances have been that of Australia’s Phil Hughes, who passed away in 2014 after being hit on the back of the head by a bouncer from Sean Abbott. He suffered a ruptured artery that led to a brain hemorrhage.

The second one is of India’s swashbuckling batsman Raman Lamba, who was playing in Bangladesh. He was hit by a batsman on the head while fielding at short leg and spent days in a coma in hospital with major brain injuries, before passing away. One more known international cricketer to die on the field was Pakistan’s Wasim Raja, brother of Ramiz Raja. He died playing a 50-over match for Surrey in England due to a massive heart attack.