WI vs SL: Kusal Perera hurts his ribs attempting a catch at long-on

Fielders in modern-day cricket always put their body on the line. The value for a run saved and a half chance converted into a catch has gone up and thus fielders train harder to even latch onto the balls that are going over the boundary. Sri Lankan batsman Kusal Perera fielding at the long-on boundary attempted something similar in the day-night Test against Windies. However, it went a bit too far and he ended up hurting himself.

West Indies elected to bat first on a wicket that had a lot of greenness and against a really good Sri Lankan bowling attack. They fell on the face as most batsmen really struggled to deal with the swinging pink ball. They were 82/9 by the 29th over and that’s when the batsman attempted a big shot. It was sailing over the boundary ropes for everyone else but Perera.

He sensed he still had a chance to grab the ball and was just watching it. Perera forgot to see he had already crossed the boundary and was committed to it. He threw himself and grabbed the ball but it wasn’t quite a wise decision as his body went with the momentum and bumped into the hoardings on the sideline.

He was down there holding his chest and asked for help. Initially, it appeared that he had hurt his ribs and was in real pain. There was an ambulance driven on the field and he was taken to hospital for a scan. The umpires decided to take an early dinner break while he received medical help.

The good news is he didn’t hurt himself really bad and the scans confirmed that it wasn’t a serious injury.

“He was cleared of any serious injury,” the Sri Lankan team manager Asanka Gurusinha was quoted as saying on ESPNcricinfo, “But we will have to see how he comes up tomorrow morning before making a decision. He is very sore.”

Here is the video of the accident:

For all the latest cricket news and other updates follow CricTracker.