New Delhi: The 26-year-old former Australian Test opener Will Pucovski has been forced to retire from professional cricket. Pucovski has squared up to many injuries throughout his career, most of them due to blows on the head that resulted in a concussion.
In March 2024, he was compelled to retire hurt after Riley Meredith hit him on the helmet during a Sheffield Shield match. That forced him to opt out of a contract with Leicestershire for the English summer of 2024 and also kept him out of the remainder of the Australian summer.
Keeping actual blows aside, Pucovski agreed that dealing with back-to-back injuries had a huge effect on his mental and emotional strength.
His state association Cricket Victoria, did offer him a contract in 2024/25, but there was a catch. CV was told by Cricket Australia that it would have to keep the contract until Pucovski was evaluated by a committee that included representatives from CA, CV and independent medical experts.
“My understanding is that an independent panel of experts recommended Pucovski retire three months ago, and all that’s left is for Cricket Victoria and his team to formalise that contractually. The news doesn’t come as a surprise to teammates of Pucovski who haven’t seen him at training all pre-season he’s been travelling overseas,” reports on Will Pucovski.
Pucovski scored 2,350 runs at an average of 45.19 in 36 first-class matches, including seven hundreds. In his only Test match, against India in Sydney in 2020/21, he scored 62 and 10. Despite signing a contract with the Melbourne Stars in 2020/21, he remains the only Australian international cricketer to never have played T20 cricket since the BBL’s inception.
