Former Australian Test opener Will Pucovski has forced to retire from cricket at 27. He has faced a long series of injuries throughout his career, mostly due to blows on the head that led to concussion.
In March 2024, Riley Meredith hit Pucovski on the helmet with a bouncer during a Sheffield Shield match. A concussed Pucovski was forced to retire hurt. The injury not only ruled him out of the rest of the Australian summer but also forced him to opt out of a Leicestershire contract for the English summer of 2024.
Pucovski retires after series of concussions
Pucovski has had a long run-in with injuries (including multiple concussions), and has admitted to the injuries affecting his mental health.
Cricket Victoria (CV) did offer him a contract in 2024/25, but Cricket Australia (CA) instructed that Cricket Victoria would have to hold on to the contract until a committee comprising of representatives from CA, CV, and independent medical experts had assessed Pucovski. On August 29, 9News Melbourne reported that the committee had officially ended his professional cricket career.
At the age of 26, Will Pucovski’s professional cricket career is sadly over following a recommendation from a panel of experts. His last concussion was in March.
— Tom Morris (@tommorris32) August 29, 2024
Details coming up shortly on @9NewsMelb 🏏 @SEN_Cricket
On Tuesday (April 8), Pucovski told SEN radio of his retirement: “I wish I was coming in, maybe, under better circumstances. I’m not going to be playing cricket again. It’s been a really difficult year to put it as simply as possible ... The simple message is I won’t be playing cricket at any level again.”
From 36 first-class matches, he made 2,350 runs at 45.19 with seven hundreds. This included 62 and 10 in his only Test match, against India at Sydney in 2020/21. He remains a rare instance of an Australian international cricketer to have never played T20 since the inception of the BBL, though he did receive a Melbourne Stars contract in 2020/21.
However, he may have other stints with cricket. He has committed to join the Victoria Premier club in Melbourne as head coach for 2025/26. He has been a television commentator.
He did make 131 in his penultimate first-class match, against a New South Wales attack consisting of Jackson Bird, Chris Tremain, and Nathan Lyon. “After that century in Sydney, I thought from a personal point of view things were starting to click for me,” he added. “I put a mountain of effort into getting things right off the field to be good on the field.”
He then made 22 against Tasmania, where he was concussed in the second innings. That remains his last game. “It had always been my dream to play for Australia, I found myself in that position in 2021. My ambition didn’t stop there. I wanted to be that guy that was a leader of the batting unit. I wanted to play 100 Tests. Unfortunately, one Test is where it ends,” he lamented.
Pucovski: "Walking around the house was a struggle"
The symptoms of the last concussion have lasted longer than the previous instances, he feels. It has not been easy: “In the couple of months post that I struggled to get anything done, walking around the house was a struggle. My fiancée was annoyed because I didn’t contribute to chores. I was sleeping a lot.
“From there it’s been a tough year, a lot of the symptoms didn’t go away which has led me to this decision. The first few months were horrendous, but things didn't leave me. I’ve only just turned 27. The space of concussion is very young. Speaking to a lot of specialists, this is a difficult space to deal with.
“The technology isn’t quite there to understand what is what. When you have symptoms for over a year and I’ve had others for numerous years, it can be quite difficult to see how can I get out to play professional sport again when I'm struggling to live my life how I want to.”
Pucovski also explained why he did not retire immediately after the abovementioned medical panel ruled him out of any cricket: “I didn’t want to make an official call until I was symptom-free. When you’re struggling, it’s hard to make a huge decision. The medical panel recommended I retire and that was really difficult to come to terms with. I felt like I was coming over the hill with a few things.
"Technically you can’t make anyone retire from anything: it got made clear to me it was a strong recommendation but the final decision ultimately was up to me. Since then I have spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find answers, trying to understand what the brain injury is that I have and why have I had all these problems.
"I wanted to hold on to the dream as long as I could"
"There probably wasn't a moment that I thought ‘this is the day’, but things haven’t changed. I wanted to hold on to the dream as long as I could but the flip side to that is you want to feel better and live your life normally. I just don’t want to risk doing any more damage to my brain than I’ve already done.”
He also fears that his struggles might not have been over: “There’s the mental health symptoms which is one part of it. Then there’s the fatigue, which is quite bad, I get regular headaches. I really struggle with things on my left side. If I have things happening in my left I feel sick and dizzy. I struggle with motion sickness.
“At 27, I have so much ahead of me and I have so many things I want to achieve in my life. I wanted to play another 15 years and that gets taken away which is bad enough. At least I know I won't get hit in the head again, but when the symptoms are ongoing, it's frightening. I know what I was like before these concussions and I know what I am now. My family and friends have noticed a difference in me and that’s scary for me and for them.”
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